What Does Not Kill Us
by lilskippy
Summary: ...hurts like hell. Or the loss of heaven, if you're a blonde slayer. Or the mantle of reform, if you're the rogue type. Buffy's not the same! Faith's trying not to be the same! Willow's into the wiccan-fu! We're past singing, but it sure ain't normal.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I own nothing. Legalese, etc.

A/N: This is the start of a new, stand-alone story that begins during those last moments of the musical. Readers of my previous story, "Within," will find that this one shares certain thematic elements. I thank you in advance for your thoughts and reviews!

* * *

_Where do we go from here?_

Seriously. They all would instead like a return ticket to where they had been, please. That discordant "heaven" still hung in the air. Together. Alone.

And Willow knew she was the one who got them into this mess to begin with.

A whole lot of mess and where do we go from here and goddess she looks pale! Buffy's eyes stared straight ahead as she sang. Wouldn't it be better just to start over...wipe the slate clean again? That's what Buffy needed, really...after all, how could you ever get over something like that otherwise?

Feeling eyes on her, Willow turned. Beautiful, blonde Tara, who had sung to her like a fairytale in the park earlier, was looking back at Willow, looking like she knew what Willow had been thinking. Or maybe the redhead imagined it. Disappointment. Anger. Sadness. How was she ever going to fix any of those things?

And all they could do, all of them, was sing this stupid song with its stupid choreographed moves. Singing their hearts out. Or lack thereof, till Spike cut and ran. Then it really was their hearts and Willow hated singing and here she was doing it with all the rest of them.

Until Buffy, too, was gone.

Willow made for the door, almost crying out at the sight of the blonde's retreating back, the hand she held, fluttering, before her face. But Giles cut her off, holding her in line, holding her to the song, his face telling Willow it wasn't about trying to fix things now. So she stayed put and let her go.

* * *

_The curtains close on a kiss. _

Except it doesn't. Not really. Only movies end with a kiss and then, blissfully, the credits to cover up any residual messiness. Buffy's life, crazy as it was, was no movie. And so, when she walked out on the whole song and dance, she just walked away from it all. From the raw wound of the secret she'd just revealed in song, from the faces of friends and family, horrified, who might be spurred into some sort of "Save Our Depressed Slayer" campaign with buttons and guilt.

Or they might do nothing.

She wasn't sure which would be worse.

Best to do instead something she knew she could do. Save them the trouble. Go away. Be just the slayer that maybe she was always supposed to be. No one to hurt, no one to hurt her. Just keep fighting till you die. Like Kendra and her Mr. Pointy and her one shirt.

Okay, maybe more than one shirt. The blonde slayer stopped by the house, quickly packing a bag. And then, following in those tried and true footsteps of others who wanted to get away, following her own footsteps from several years earlier, she found the Greyhound station, bought a ticket, and didn't look back.

Except in her mind and her heart. But, hey, not with her eyes. She guessed that was something.

* * *

When it was over, they all milled around, aimlessly, because, really, what do you do after you sing your song? Nevermind why they were even singing it, now that Sweet had gone off into whatever hellish costumed ether he'd come from.

"Ow! What was that—?" Xander rubbed the back of his head where Anya had smacked him. She just glared in response and, chastened, he dropped his eyes. "Oh...nevermind."

Xander? Of all people, Xander? Giles was looking back and forth between Xander and Dawn in her ridiculous dress, thinking that even the younger Summers would have been a more likely candidate for such a foolhardy spell. Less likely than some others, though. He looked over at Willow, feeling the guilt come off her. He sighed. A reason to stay.

As they stumbled outside, walking home with so much less pomp and circumstance than they had come with, they were startled by a vampire coming out of the bushes. He looked just as startled to see such a large group.

"We aren't going to sing or anything, are we?" Seeing Tara's timid "no," he vamped, new and stupid enough to try to take on so many at once. And apparently on firmer ground now that he would not have to sing for his supper.

"Oh, for crying out loud! Go away!" Anya promptly whipped out a wooden cross and hit him on the forehead with it. He sizzled and backed away, surprised, tripping right over the foot Dawn put out for him as she daintily held up the hem of her dress. He fell, sprawling, looking up now to see Giles holding a cross in his face, finally snapping that this wasn't the group to go for. He took off into the night.

They all watched him go, no one really making a move to chase. Buffy would get him.

* * *

"I'm not doing this...it's stupid."

The circle of women looked from her to their instructor and back again, trying to gauge whether they, too, could get out of this.

The older woman in cheap clothes sighed. "And why do you think it's stupid, Ms. Wilkins?" It was a question she'd asked before. The roomful of eyes swiveled back to the brunette rocking back in her chair, arms folded across her chest.

"'Cause no one's gonna read the goddamn thing. If I'm just writin' it for me, I'll save the paper and just go talk to myself."

"Ya already do enougha that at night, Wilkins." A snickering voice from somewhere to her left. The brunette glared down the table, but hadn't been quick enough to catch the speaker.

"Quiet." The instructor held up her hand, then turned back to the sullen girl across the table from her. "As much as I applaud your concern for the environment, Ms. Wilkins, things become more real when we write them down. Conversations—even with ourselves—are easy to misremember or twist into what we want them to be. The written word stares us in the face, tells us the truth of what we think right now."

"Unless I lie."

Another sigh. "No, Faith. Your lies probably tell us more truth."

The dark slayer rolled her eyes, but dropped the front two chair legs with a bang and snatched a little half pencil from the old shoebox in the middle of the table. Placing the non-pointy end between her lips, she made a show of studying hard on what to write.

Having dealt with that issue, the instructor turned to the rest of the room. "Okay, ladies. You know the drill. Write the letters to those people you need to apologize to, then we'll go around and talk about what it was like writing them. How it made us feel." Seeing that there would be no more excitement, the rest of the women slowly reached for their pencils and started in. Some wrote quickly, confident in who they needed to forgive them, in the words that needed to be said. Faith chewed on the end of the pencil, wondering if she should ask for more sheets of paper.

Impulsively, she started the first line with a "B." Then filled in the rest of the name. Then erased it back to "B" again. No sense getting too crazy here—some things just shouldn't change.

That one letter held a shitload of history, images in her mind. Buffy's face through the window of the classroom, dancing with Buffy at the Bronze, the blonde slayer's hand taking hers. That first rule: don't die. Killing Finch. Every goddamn Doris Day outfit Buffy wore. Buffy's chained, struggling form in front of her. Those eyes when she had held the knife to Willow's throat. Buffy in Faith's leather, pressing the knife in. Swan dive. Buffy's body, being in it. That hard face on the rooftop when she told Faith to turn herself in.

"Alright, people, let's talk about what you've written."

Faith snapped out of her reverie, looking around as the other women put their pencils down, pages filled with scrawled words. Looking down at her own. "B. My fault. Sorry. But you didn't make it any fuckin' easier. F."

Well, points for brevity, anyway.


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: Thanks so much for the feedback! How kind are those who review a story when it is young and unformed, and still find promise in it!

* * *

About three hours in, the bus pulled to a stop at the Barstow depot, the driver warning them "twenty minutes and I'm leavin'." Buffy pulled her eyes from the window and decided she could use a little fresh air. Outside, it was cold and Buffy was glad of her sweater, her knee-length coat. Some of the other passengers came off with her, wandering around, some stopping to eat sandwiches on benches. They were better prepared than she was. A few others walked ahead of her to the vending machines beckoning. The sound of change and clunking processed food and sodas echoed until most had gotten their supper, such as it was, then wandered back towards the bus, leaving her to it. The series of arches made little pockets of dark as the blonde stared at the machines for inspiration. Coke. Cheetos. Muffled scream off to her left?

The slayer raised her head, alert. She left her purchases in the bin, reached inside her coat for a stake.

Staying in the darkness that the arches threw, she moved quickly and silently towards the sound, the base of her spine tingling a little. Back in a dingy corner, she could make out a young man and a larger, looming shadow that had him by the neck. A small cry and Buffy darted in, grabbing the guy by the arm, hauling him roughly back.

"Get out of here!" The slayer's voice was an insistent hiss as she kept her eyes on that dark shape. It was large. She almost smiled. Hearing the sound of feet moving away behind her, she lunged in, still not quite able to see the black thing's edges, the shape of its limbs.

Until one of those limbs came out and got her, with a longer reach than she'd expected. And, well, really who had been expecting a four-foot long arm, hairy and thick? Maybe her, next time, she thought, picking herself up off the ground, shaking her head a little. The creature stayed where it was, hardly making a sound, not even a dignified monster growl. Buffy went back in at it again, ducking under that arm this time, being the sort of girl who learns from her...

Okay, next time she'd know there was a pretty quick backswing there, too. She felt the wall, slid down in a little before regaining her footing. Where was a crossbow when you needed it? She backed over to a bench, kicking out the thick, middle slat. It would do in a pinch.

She came back swinging, changing the arc midway to cut down towards where the creature's knees must be. If it had knees. Well, something connected anyway. And she hammered in again, this time swinging straight for the head. Two big black hands caught it, but in catching it, left open underneath, which is where Buffy aimed her punch, packing it full of slayer fun.

It landed, but the thing was fast, reaching down with one hand to take the slayer up by the neck, squeezing, shaking her a little as she lifted off the ground. It was silent and squeezing, offering a quiet death. Buffy could hear only her own small cries, dragged out of her as she dangled, fighting for breath. She felt her foot lashing out, catching that exposed belly full on, feeling the exhale of foul breath in her face. The slight loosening of the fingers that allowed her to get some leverage of her own underneath, in between her neck and those fingers, peeling back a little even as the stars hovered in the edge of her vision and she left one hand working as the creature tightened its grip while the other found a stake, fumbled a bit with it, felt the blackness creeping in, until finally she got the pointy end turned right and jammed it home.

Another wave of breath, that hand loosening, the creature slumping still quiet in its dark corner as Buffy dropped and backpedaled.

She pulled up her collar, not quite concealing the finger-shaped bruises on her neck, pocketed the stake for next time, and hurried back to the bus. Several miles down the road, she realized she'd left her supper back in Barstow. Good thing she hadn't really been hungry anyway.

* * *

The toughest thing about prison was figuring out what to do with your time. Much as she hated those group sessions earlier, at least they broke up the day. Now there was nothing. On the cinderblock wall next to her bed: " days without killing anyone." Like one of those construction job sites. In the blank space in front of the words, careful lines for each day since she'd been here. Some days she counted them up, for something to do. Other days she erased lines for people she had killed, just to remind herself she was working off a deficit and, you know, not to get too cocky about this whole reform thing.

Okay, so it didn't really make the best count of days. Still a shitload of lines.

In the dim night light (dim because they never let it get dark, never let you really hide like you wanted to), Faith stared up at the dull gray of the ceiling. She'd taken top, her best position, if she did say so herself. That and she really didn't want to be reminded she wasn't alone in here. Fat chance they would give her a single if she asked pretty please. So she had a roommate to hear all the talking and screaming and shit in her dreams. Not too much she could do about it, being asleep and all.

Of course, it was too good of gossip for her bunkmate not to tell, and, since the word was already out, no good flirting with a guard to get moved now. If she hadn't been a slayer, hadn't been able to take the beatings as they tried to figure out if she was weak during the daytime, too, she'd probably be dead or somebody's bitch by now.

But she wasn't. Sure, she'd had to break a few noses to get left alone. But, you know, a broken nose seems pretty restrained when you think they were out to kill her. She could've done worse.

For good measure, for even thinking about that something worse, Faith rubbed the edge of her hand along the wall, wiping away another of those marks on the wall, forcing herself back a day in her count. The ceiling looked down at her, implacable. She heard the heavy breaths of the woman below and wondered if she would be able to sleep.

* * *

"No, Willow! No more spells." Tara's face was pinched and angry as she sat curled on one end of the living room couch. They were all in sight of the door, waiting for Buffy to reappear. She kept not appearing.

Giles pinched the bridge of his nose. "I agree with Tara, Willow. She may just be—"

"Goddess, it's just a locator spell! I don't see why you guys are freaking out so much. It's not hard and there's nothing bad about it, I promise...I just want to find Buffy. Giles, she's alone out there, dealing with...all of it!" The redhead could hardly bear the reference to what Buffy was dealing with. She'd done it. And if she could just find Buffy now, they could talk, she could apologize, and she could have her friend back again.

"Will, we could just go out and try looking for her—you know, usual haunts, graveyards and...graveyards." Xander's voice was quiet, as it had been since his role in the musical-gone-bad had been revealed. He gave her a small smile. "Call me old fashioned."

"But that would take too long!"

"Magic isn't a shortcut you use because it's more convenient, Willow." Tara shook her head. Her girlfriend hadn't learned anything from this.

"Well, we can't just sit around here and wait! She looked really bad when she left...she could be in trouble out there!"

"Call me crazy, but I think the chick with the super powers can probably handle herself, even when she's depressed and suicidal."

The room turned towards Anya, standing arm in arm with Xander. She gave a small shrug of "what?" Xander glanced over again at his old friend, who had resumed her pacing in the middle of the room, her fingers working unconsciously, almost as if she were casting.

"As loathe as I am to admit it, Anya appears to be right, Willow." Giles sighed, leaning against the wall. "Buffy should be able to take care of herself. And she may not want to be found right now after..." He, too, could hardly say it. "It's only been a matter of hours. I'm sure she'll come back when she's ready."

"You think so?" Everyone looked at Dawn. They'd forgotten Buffy's sister was there, curled in a chair in the corner, staring intently at the door.

* * *

"Is this your dream or mine?"

Buffy whirled around, hearing the dark slayer's voice behind her.

"What makes you think it's a dream?"

"Well, for one thing, ya ain't tryin' to gut me. Yet, anyway." A pause as the blonde slayer's eyes met hers. "And, for another, this has gotta be your bed we're makin' again."

Buffy looked down at the multitude of pillows and downy comfort, the cream sheets. Definitely not a Faith bed. And definitely not the Greyhound window she'd last been using as a pillow. "Ok, you have a point."

"So..." The brunette smoothed the cool sheet.

"...this is awkward." Finished the blonde.

"Yeah, I mean, how do ya tell someone that having a stuffed pig kinda ruins the whole badass superhero rep?" Faith tossed the animal at Buffy, who caught it against her chest and then held him up to face her.

"Mr. Gordo knows I'm more than just a slayer."

"Lucky you, I guess." The dark slayer shot a few pillows on the bed, displaying excellent basketball form.

"Would you like to borrow him?" The blonde held him out across the bed.

"Naw. Girls down at the prison would think I was weak." Faith looked across at her golden counterpart reaching out. "'Sides, I might get him dirty." Buffy's brows knit in confusion, looking to Mr. Gordo in her hands, then down to the droplets of blood on the sheets.

"Not again." The blonde groaned at the marred perfection of that bed. "We were just making it all pretty."

"I didn't do it, B., I swear." Faith looked across to Buffy, hoarse, pleading, then down to the blood. The room spun, forcing her to sit down, then collapse back on that bed, splayed out in front of Buffy, the blood pooling under her neck.


	3. Chapter 3

A/N: Another chapter even quicker...my way of saying thanks for the reviews!

* * *

"Faith!"

The blonde woke with a start, banging her forehead into the window pane of the Greyhound.

"Excuse me, but I couldn't help but overhear. Perhaps you were dreaming about the Good Word?"

One hand rubbing at her head, Buffy looked over to find a young woman in her twenties clutching a Bible and giving her an earnest look.

"Oh, jesus!"

"He's the one! Have you seen the light?" The woman began to pull several pamphlets from the bag at her feet.

"Yes." The other woman looked up sharply, clearly not expecting that response or that matter-of-fact tone. Buffy went on: "It was nice while it lasted. But I was talking about a whole different kind of Faith. Trust me...not yours. Now if you'll excuse me..." She pointed towards the bathroom at the back of the bus and scooted out around the other woman.

In the horrible lighting, she studied herself in the mirror, swaying with the Greyhound. Bus hair. Check. Furrowed brow. Check. Pale, drawn... Faith. Buffy closed her eyes and could see the other slayer laid across the bed in front of her, blood draining out, vivid against the bed. The whole scene in three colors: the pale of the sheets and Faith's face, the dark brown of her leather and her hair, the red of her blood, far too much of it from those little puncture wounds in her neck.

Shaking her head to clear it, she bent over the sink and splashed cold water across her face. Slayer dream. She'd have to ask Giles.

Her face sunk, water still dripping off it.

No Giles. She jerked at the towel dispenser. Probably halfway to England by now. She'd have to figure this one out on her own. No Willow, Xander, Dawn...

Buffy shoved the wadded towel into the trash. Better that they weren't here. Better for everyone.

She could do this. Slayers had been doing this for years without Scoobies. Okay, so they had watchers. But not like it was her fault Giles decided to pick now to abandon the sacred duty ship.

She stared at herself in the mirror, trying to talk it through. Let's see...Faith had been hurt, bleeding. Hadn't looked so dangerous then. Was she still in prison? She said she was so she must be sticking with it for once. A dream that Faith was going to die? Get bitten by a vampire? There couldn't be any vampires in prison, could there? 'Cause what would they do when they had to go outside to lift weights in the yard like in the movies, and wouldn't someone notice the feeding? Not that people normally observant—witness Sunnydale's general population. Okay, getting off-track here. Faith, bitten. Literally? Oh, shit, figuratively? She wasn't going to be any good at metaphors. This is why slayers have watchers, and why watchers are English, because metaphors and crap like that are clearly an evil English invention.

Giles.

Had he left already? What about Dawn? Would Willow and Tara stay with her? Of course they would. And probably raise her better, smarter. Be there more than she could be.

Mom.

Hearing banging on the flimsy door behind her, she grabbed another towel for the tears, and went out to find herself a different seat, where she could be alone.

* * *

The morning sun was far too cheerful and insistent for Willow's taste. Reflexively, she swung a hand out across the bed next to her. Feeling nothing but sheets, she moved it around, searching. Nothing. Sitting up, she confirmed it. Tara wasn't there. The night before came flooding in, and she flopped back on the bed, hands to her head.

Until she heard stirrings in the next room. Buffy's room. She bolted up, out, and across the hall, flinging the door open.

"Buffy!" No...different blonde. "Tara!" A startled Tara jerked her head up, hands frozen where they were, fastening the buttons of her blouse.

"W-Willow!"

"Thank goddess you didn't leave!"

"Where was I going to go?" The blonde looked back down, her fingers moving again, swiftly, through the buttons.

"Oh. I thought... Sweety, you don't have to...let's at least talk about this." The redhead fidgeted, self-conscious fingers pulling at the hem of her pajama top.

Tara stiffened, then sighed, looking over at her lover, the soft strands of her hair a little mussed from sleep, that eager expression. "Can you promise me?"

Excited, hopeful. "Anything! What?"

The blonde's voice was quiet. She couldn't quite meet Willow's eyes. "Don't do that to me again."

"What, the spell? Of course not! How many times can I tell you how sorry I am? I messed up. Bad Willow, bad! Never again, baby, I promise!"

Tara couldn't help but smile at the rush of words, so Willow. It almost made it alright that the redhead didn't understand, didn't make that connection between her spell and what Glory had done. Because it was Willow, she let it go, because she promised. If it didn't happen again, maybe it didn't matter so much that she understood.

Reaching over, she took Willow's hand. "Let's go see if there's any word about Buffy."

* * *

The next two days were a blur to Faith. All sitting, thinking. Things the dark slayer had hardly done before. Just one of the ways prison changed you. And all her thoughts had been for that dream. A slayer dream, she could feel it.

Not like knowing that did her very much good, though. She was hardly a slayer in here, hardly the person to take a prophecy and run with it to save the world, what with the bars and all.

But she had felt Buffy there. Her, and not some dream-her. Different from the nightmares of the blonde's face as she stabbed her, over and over, laughing as she plunged the knife in. This wasn't that. This had been Buffy. Somewhere else, dreaming, too, with her.

And Faith'd been bleeding all over those goddamn perfect sheets again.

She could almost feel that exquisite pain in her neck still, the blood draining away. Looking up from the bed to the blonde standing over her. Could almost hear the panic in the other girl's voice as she had cried out her name. Had she really done that? So hard to remember. She'd woken, then, gasping, the stirrings in the bed below her telling her she'd been talking aloud again. Had Buffy really called her name?

If it was a prophecy, did that mean she was gonna die? Did it mean Buffy was gonna watch her die?

Dying she could understand. Easy to do in here with all the knives and shit floating around. But she was still slayer enough to feel any vampires that were near, and there weren't any. And why the hell would Buffy come back around her again anyway? The blonde had made it clear she was comfortable locking Faith away for a long ass time.

Which was probably a good thing, anyway. Both the Buffy staying away and the locking Faith away. Can't be too careful with explosive shit like that.

The gray ceiling agreed with her as, with a _whump_ the guards turned the lights down for the night and Faith drifted off to sleep.

Only to find herself at the entrance to a dark warehouse, the growling sounds of a fight coming closer as she stepped inside. As her eyes adjusted, she could make out the horde of vampires, circling, some wielding clubs. In the center, a whirl of blonde hair.

First: that familiar cramp in her stomach of "what's she gonna do when she sees me?" Second: Shit, that's a lot of vamps!

Faith instinctively moved forward to join the fight, but found herself fixed in place on the sidelines. No help this time either. The distinct impression this was no dream, that it was actually happening somewhere. Watching as the circle pressed inwards, every now and then a body flying back and out, the sound of dusting, but always more pressing in. Okay, now she _needed_ to get in there, even if Buffy tried to stake her in the middle of it all. She could barely make out the smaller slayer in the middle of it all, fighting furiously with wild punches and risky kicks. Taking some out, taking hard hits, eyes flashing.

A figure stepped out of the shadows beside her, and Faith peeled her eyes from the fight.

Buffy watching Buffy.

"You got a death wish or somethin'?" Faith turned her eyes back to the scene in front of them, referring to the blonde they were both watching.

"Why? You want to try to kill me again?" The blonde said the words as if she were really curious, looking over at the younger girl, cocking her head a little.

"Don't need me this time." Faith met her eyes, raked down over the bruises blossoming on the girl next to her with every hit that the Buffy across the room took. She jerked her head back at the fight.

A vamp caught the blonde slayer out there in the back with a blow from his club, sending her to the floor as vampires piled on like football players. Faith saw the girl next to her stumble a little and reached out a hand instinctively, catching Buffy's flailing one.

"Hey look, I'm still under there!" The pile in front of them shifted, collapsed a little as demons underneath were staked. The brunette almost smiled as the blonde next to her squeezed her hand a little in excitement or thanks.

Two vamps came flying back, giving the fighting Buffy the opening she needed to get out, stand up again, get away.

And—what the fuck!—make a bring-it-on motion to the rest? The Chosen One turned again to the fight, to the ten vamps left. Again, a flurry of punches, the true aim of her stake. One caught her arm and swung her around into the wall, hard. She reeled, then righted, stabbing backwards, catching him in the heart. A little unsteady. A crazy flying kick that actually landed, knocking one to the ground, staked as another jumped on her back, teeth opening up her neck right before she dusted him, too.

The last two, no longer liking their odds, tried to run. The blonde slayer lunged after them, hunting them down until the dust swirled and she stood, alone.

"How the hell did you make it outta that?"

The blonde next to her looked surprised, too, nearly propped up now by Faith, as battered as her counterpart limping off into the night.


	4. Chapter 4

A/N: Again, many thanks for the reviews! I always wait for them with bated breath!

* * *

Buffy moved gingerly from table to table, careful of the soreness in her back from that club hit the night before. She'd almost gone down with that one. Lucky.

Lucky even though she knew she'd live through it. She'd seen that with Faith, earlier in the night, when she'd actually tried to sleep a little before going out. She'd seen the brunette slayer watching her, in that moment before she stepped out of the shadows to join her. Watched Faith watching her. Looking good, all things considered. But then, that had always been Faith's specialty: looking good while being bad for you. Like one of those devil's food cupcakes. Or Ho-Hos.

Buffy set down coffees in front of the two construction workers, not looking at them as she scribbled their orders on a small pad. They hardly looked at her, except to take in casually the pretty face and nice body as she went back into the kitchen. Couple of plates full of pancakes, sizzling sausage patties. The grease pooling a little. Ah, how she'd missed the pleasures of the food service industry! It hadn't been hard to get a job—again with the pretty face, nice body—and it paid the bills at a cheap motel until she could get an apartment. Left her time to slay at night.

And the town needed a slayer. That large lair last night, tons of vamps who thought she'd be an easy meal. They thought wrong, of course. Newbies, most of them—lazy, stupid, and overconfident. Not much of a challenge, except in the numbers that helped them get a few blows in under her guard.

She winced, bending to take another tray on her shoulder. Okay, more than a few. And she'd known they were coming. And walked into the fight in spite of that.

Note to self: more aspirin tomorrow.

She'd already scouted out another lair for tonight. A large one, underground, more established looking. No dreams this time to foreshadow the Big Victory Against All Odds. She wondered if she'd get lucky again.

* * *

Nothing. For nearly three whole days, nothing. A whole lot of nothing and staring at each other and the phone and the door and nothing. Strangely, it was Dawn who was the first to say it. Okay, not really the first. That was Anya, but no one listened to her. The younger Summers, however...

"She's not coming back."

"Oh, Dawnie, I'm sure she wouldn't just leave you." Tara smoothed the younger girl's hair with a hand so like Buffy's it made Dawn close her eyes and sigh.

"Why wouldn't she? Everyone else wants to go. She just got out the door faster." Tara and Giles looked down, away from her bitter eyes. "And it's not like she hasn't done it before."

"Okay, you do have a point there, but then she was dealing with killing Angel and Kendra dying and your mom wigging, and now..." Xander stopped, suddenly at a loss.

"And now she's just dealing with being ripped out of heaven by her best friend. Don't know if that provides the same reason for leaving." Anya looked thoughtful for a moment. "Of course, if she saw her mom in heaven, that might tip the scales towards run-away-worthy."

Xander clapped a hand over his girlfriend's mouth, but it wasn't fast enough. It never was.

Dawn's voice was almost a whisper now. "Do you think she was with Mom?"

Giles was caught between a "yes, of course your mother is in heaven" and a "no, I'm sure Buffy would have told you about it if she was." Floundering, he settled on "I'm sure there will be plenty of time to talk about it with Buffy when she returns."

At which point, Willow jumped in. "Giles, we can't just sit around here and wait! I mean, we can cover some of the patrolling like we did when she was gone, but this is like demon central 'cause, hello, Hellmouth, and we need a slayer. We need Buffy here. And we're the reason she ran away...doesn't that make us, you know, obligated to do something about it? Get her back?"

"Small problem, Will. We don't know where she went."

Willow nodded at Xander, knowing she had won a little just by his question. "I thought about that and, well, we all know how Buffy is with driving and she doesn't have a car, so I'm thinking that maybe..." She raced over to the computer, fingers flying across the keyboard as she hacked into the Greyhound ticketing system. "Hopefully, she used her name. Yep, here it is: Anne Summers. That's her middle name, right Dawn?" Buffy's sister nodded, unable to stop herself from leaning over Willow's shoulder to see.

"Cleveland? Why would anyone go to Cleveland?" Dawn's face scrunched up as she read the screen again to be sure.

"Actually, there's a Hellmouth there. I may have mentioned it once. I can't believe she was actually listening." Giles looked over at Willow, her pleading eyes as she watched him. He could see how much she needed to go, to be forgiven. He sighed. "Very well. Willow is right, Sunnydale does need a slayer. We will find her and see if we can convince her to return." A pause, glancing at Dawn. "If not...well, we'll deal with that then." Over to the excited redhead. "Willow, you should come with me. It's possible we might need a locator spell once we're inside the city." Out of the corner of her eye, Willow caught her girlfriend's frown at that. "If the rest of you wouldn't mind carrying on patrols here. Dawn, you might try contacting Spike, to see if he would help." The watcher brought his gaze back to Willow. "You'll want to pack a few things. We'll leave tomorrow morning, first thing. Oh, and we'll be making a stop in Los Angeles first. We may need some backup, considering the sorts of places we may have to go to look for Buffy."

* * *

It had not been a good day so far. From her spot on the bleachers, Faith looked out over the yard, the groups of women talking, the basketball game. She took a drag off her cigarette. Yet another food fight at breakfast. She had gotten so goddamn tired of biscuits and gravy in her hair she'd thrown a punch at the large bitch next to her in line who'd started it all. And the slayer punch had knocked the girl on her ass.

She hadn't gotten caught for it, in the chaos that ensued. But she knew she'd done it. Once again, going of half-cocked. The slayer in her had laughed at the chance to finally hit something. Some days she swore being in this place was worse for her control, not better.

Another drag.

The California sun was hot, bright. She could feel it even in the shade where she sat, alone. Or what passed for alone in here.

What she needed was to get out and get a good slay or two or several hundred. Seeing Buffy in that fight last night, her skin had practically itched with the need to join in. Sacred duty and all that programmed in her. Or maybe she just wanted to beat the bloody hell outta something. She did have this thing inside her that needed a little more release than the average inmate was gonna get with pull-ups and pick-up games.

Had Buffy really been fighting last night? Why hadn't there been anyone to help her? Bad as the history between them was, Faith would've helped her blonde counterpart. Mighta gotten a fist in the face for her trouble and mighta been doing it for the thrill of the fight. But still would've helped. She idly considered whether it might be worth awarding herself a line on the days-of-non-killing wall count for helping the blonde slayer in the dream. The one standing next to her, not the one fighting, of course. She'd held the older slayer up there at the end, felt the girl shaking a little with exhaustion, held her close. And not once thought about killing her. Oops. Until now. Did it count to think about not thinking about it? Shit. Maybe she should just go with a no on the extra line.

The whistle blew for line-up. Dinnertime. One last pull, enjoying it before stubbing it out and saving the rest for later. The line filed in, like grade school kids, a little bit of shoving and snickering here and there, but mostly just obedient sheep going along. The line snaked around the building and made its way to the cafeteria, the strong food smell nearly bowling them over as they walked in. Smelled like meatloaf. Again, not her lucky day.

Making her way through the serving line, pointing through the plexiglass at food-like, steaming items. Picking up her chocolate milk, then her tray at the end of the line. Carrying it towards the back table she always sat at. Then a sudden, familiar tingle at the back of her neck. She looked around, expecting to see that blonde slayer, those familiar judging eyes making sure she was still firmly locked away. But she wasn't there. Nothing. And then pain.

Searing pain. A kaleidoscope in her head of a fight. She couldn't make it out. That pain!

The tray clattered to the floor. The dark slayer followed it down, unconscious.


	5. Chapter 5

A/N: Thanks as always for reading, and particularly (choirs sing!) for reading and reviewing!

I hear y'all about bringing Faith and Buffy together in a real-life sorta way. I hear you, but I'm afraid it's going to be just a bit longer...and hopefully in an unexpected way. But rest assured...it's coming!

* * *

It didn't take her long to get out of the infirmary, the state not being particularly keen on spending lots of time and money on the care of murderers with fainting spells. Faith grimaced as she was escorted away, knowing she'd be in for another round of jokes, more probing to see if she was softening under the pressure of prison life. No one could have missed her going down in the middle of the cafeteria. Couldn't have happened at night, when it was just her. Oh, no.

"Hey, can I get to the phone real quick?" A quirked eyebrow from the guard, the unwillingness to let her use it now, at this time of night. "Please. Just need to call my dad, give him a heads up, you know. Don't want him to worry." Her best winning smile. Reluctantly, they led her to the bank of three phones, standing a little ways away, but in view, as she dialed.

"Hel—"

"Somethin's wrong with B."

"Faith?"

"Did you hear me, big guy? B. Somethin's up."

"I know. Giles told me she was in Cleveland. How did you—?"

"Cleveland?"

"Wait, so she's actually there with you?"

"What the fuck's in Cleveland?"

"She's at prison with you, Faith? Did she try to do something to you?" A pause. "You didn't do something to her, did you?"

"What—no! Wait...she's not here, dumbass. You just said she was in Cleveland."

"But you said something's wrong with her."

"Yeah. I felt it, but not in the literal sense. Okay, in the literal sense, but not in the her-being-here sense."

"You can feel her?"

"Focus, Angel. Something. Wrong. With. B. Remember when I fell and cracked my head in the shower couple months back? And later you told me B had died and shit. Well, I put it together and that was about the same time. Anyways, I felt something like that again. Tonight."

His voice low, quiet. "Buffy's dead again?"

"Don't know, but somethin'. There was pain. Knocked me out. Woke up with fuckin' meatloaf in my hair."

"Why would there be meatloaf—?"

"Not important. Look, they won't let me talk long. Just thought you might wanna know. Big love and all."

"I see. Thanks." Talking in the background on Angel's end. "Hang tight, okay? Be ready."

"Ready for what?" But the line was already dead. Goddamn vamps always trying to pull this mysterious shit.

* * *

"Bloody hell." He couldn't even really muster much force behind it, and only a feeble kick of the tire. The late morning sun was already beating down and it gets pretty hot in tweed. He ripped off the jacket and threw it in a wad into the backseat. Willow had her head stuck under the hood of the car.

"Look, you're not going to be able to just will it to work. Unless you can manufacture oil out of nothing, that is." At Giles' words, Willow's head poked around the hood, raising an eyebrow. Giles frowned. "No, let's not." Sighing, he pinched the bridge of his nose. "I suppose we'll have to hitchhike. Hopefully not too difficult out here..." He looked down the road hopefully.

The redhead banged the hood shut, finishing for him. "...in the desert, you mean? Um, yeah." She rolled her eyes. "Aren't you supposed to have AAA or something?"

"Why would I need that? This car has always been very reliable." A cough. "Up until now, obviously."

"Right. So, shall you stick out a leg, or shall I?" As Willow looked over at him, Giles looked down doubtfully at his trousered legs. "Okay, kidding. Let me call Xander and have him send a tow truck or something."

Ah, the magic of modern technology. A few minutes on her cellphone and she returned to where the watcher was sitting, dejectedly, in the hot car.

"So, they're sending someone, but it'll be a little while. They don't get a lot of calls for out here." Sighing, she climbed back into the passenger seat. "Oh, and there's still no word."

The older man looked over, his shoulders sagging just a little more. "We'll find her."

The witch looked off into the shimmering heat. "I hope so." Then back to Giles. "Although at the rate we're going, she'd better be standing still somewhere."

* * *

Breakfast. If there was another goddamned food fight, she swore she was gonna stick these sausage links right up somebody's...

"Wilkins! Front and center!"

Faith's head snapped up, along with everyone else's in the cafeteria. She didn't know what to do with her tray of half-eaten breakfast, so she left it there. Walked over to the guards near the door, in front of all those eyes.

"What's the deal?" They fixed the cuffs on her and she racked her brains for something she'd done or failed to do, coming up with a big fat zero.

"Visitor. Ain't you special?"

"Not really." She shrugged, settling down a little for the short walk to the visiting room. It had to be... "Wesley." The Englishman was sitting alone in the room on the other side of the glass. One of her guards peeled off, while the other stayed in the corner of the room, watching her, looking pointedly at his watch.

Her watcher's face was flat, serious. Faith tried to blink back the memories of torturing him. Yet another person she had yet to really make things right with. He saw her wince and it seemed to soften him a little, a half smile as if she'd given the appropriate, expected response. He leaned in to get down to business.

"Faith." His greeting. "I've taken care of things over here. We have about five minutes, which should provide ample time for you to take care of things over there..." A nod in the guard's direction. "...and then for us to make our way out."

She must be missing something. "Out?"

"Yes." His eyes darted to the guard, who wasn't really paying attention. He kept his voice low. "Yes, out. It's time, Faith."

She leaned in, her whisper matching his. "No. It's not. Still in prison here, remember? Murderer? Payin' for it?"

"Do you feel as though you might continue your..." A cough. "...previous activities?" Activities? Gotta hand it to the Brits for sanitizing the situation.

"No!" She hissed, leaning even further into the glass. "I mean, I don't think so, but I don't know, and you don't know, and I should probably be here, you know?"

Her watcher raised an eyebrow at her, pursing his lips a little. "As eloquent as that was, Faith, we can't wait. The world needs a slayer. And, at this point, that's you. So you're going to have to try to pull it together and do some good out here."

She smirked at his ringing endorsement. "Didn't get the memo, did you? I'm the bad one. You want a certain blonde, short, kinda superior..."

"Whom you've told us is dead." She opened her mouth to say she hadn't said that, but stopped when he held up his hand. "Or is seriously hurt. Either way, the line runs through you, and, god help us, Angel thinks the outside world needs _you_ now."

"Well, we're all clearly fucked then. Big A never was the sharpest tool in the shed." She leaned back, arms folded over her chest.

"That may be, but I've drugged several guards over here who will be noticed in approximately..." He glanced at his watch. "...two minutes. So, unless you would like to see me shipped off to a men's facility, for which I would be extremely ill-suited, you had better break through that glass so that you can get out of here and explain to Angel yourself why this isn't a good idea. Believe me, I've already tried."

So, she really didn't have a choice, did she? Looked like she was going to have to go on the run. Again.


	6. Chapter 6

A/N: Thanks again for reading! Makes my day! Reviews make my week!

* * *

"Angel."

"Giles." A handshake. "It's been a while."

"You're looking well these days." Angel looked down at himself as if he'd forgotten what clothes he put on that morning. Some awkward standing around. Giles glanced around at Wesley and Cordelia, nodding at both, and knitted his brows a little at the man and woman he didn't know. Before he turned back to hear Angel speaking to him.

"So you haven't...?" Giles thought he caught a tremor of hope in the vampire's monotone.

"Heard from Buffy? No, no we haven't."

"You may not. I hate to say this, but she may be..."

"Hey, did you guys know there's a freakin' baby in the room back there?" Angel and Giles turned quickly to the interrupting voice, and Giles' eyebrows climbed up into his hair when he saw the dark slayer saunter through the door, hooking her thumb in the direction from whence she'd come.

"My goodness! Faith? Is it you...? How?"

"In the flesh, G-man. Blame Wes...he sprung me." She gave him a shrug, then turned back to Angel. "I sure hope you're not pullin' some sort of grow-your-own-food project in there, 'cause that would be bad and I'd have to stake ya for it. Even if you did get me out of prison."

Angel's chest puffed out a little. "He's my son."

"He's your what?!" The Englishman sputtered.

"B's _so_ gonna be pissed!" Faith hooted, giving Angel an up-and-down appraisal. "I'm sure she woulda kept you around if she thought you guys could have little pale kiddies."

"Oh, it's not Buffy's." Cordelia offered from the sidelines. "You know, for someone who supposedly can't have sex, he has more of it than you would think." She glared a little at the hulking vampire who wouldn't meet her eyes. "Sex-equals-happiness, my ass."

"And, Faith, it's not yours? How...? Who...?" Giles' confused look swiveled between Cordelia and Angel and Faith.

"Course it's not mine! Don't you think I would know if I'd given birth?" She shot Gunn a _can you believe this shit! _look, at which he just shrugged. "'Sides, I've been spending all my time with the ladies of the correctional facility. And you don't get pregnant from that, if you catch my meaning."

"You can't blame him, Faith. You _did _try to ride that vamp train, once upon a time. Even if it was just to make Buffy jealous." Cordelia ignored the dark slayer's open-mouthed stare and Angel's "didn't happen!", turning back to the ever-more-confused Giles. "But no, as logical as your guess was, Giles, Angel chose a different murderer to impregnate. You might remember Darla." The Englishman's eyes opened even wider.

"It's a long story." Wesley came up beside his former colleague. "Suffice it to say that the past few days have been eventful."

"Well, then, perhaps we shouldn't take you away from it, Angel." Another lusty baby cry from the other room. "Especially if you're needed here. Willow and I can just look ourselves..." Giles bent to pick up his bag again.

"Faith can help. Right, Faith?" The vampire gave Faith a little encouraging thumbs up, knowing the reaction he would get even as his eardrums felt it.

"What!?" Giles, Wesley, and Faith shouted in unison.

Cordelia made a loud snort. "Well, that's just about the lamest idea ever, Angel. I'm sure Miss I-Heart-Torture will make a great roadtrip companion. Geez! Next you'll be asking Wolfram & Hart to babysit." She went to share a pose of skeptical indifference next to Gunn, surveying Faith as she stood, torn between snapping back at Cordy and agreeing with her for the sake of getting out of said roadtrip, and then interrupted from doing either by the man she had once tortured.

"Angel, you simply cannot send my slayer away with Giles. The point of being her watcher is that I watch her _myself_ as we begin the slow work of reform and healing. Which I can't very well do if she's traipsing all over the country with a watcher who managed to lose his one and only charge." He threw Giles a snotty look and was greeted by a very Californian eyeroll in return. Wesley mentally thanked the Council for not giving him Buffy as a slayer. Lord knows what he would've picked up!

Wesley's current slayer chimed in. "Hey! Who said I needed some lame-ass British watcher anyway? And fat lot of watching you've been doing while I've been in prison." Faith turned to Angel as Wesley had the good grace to look a little chagrined. "So this is what you sprung me for? I thought you and me were gonna do it up, you know...slay some demons, do some Tai Chi, be all about peace and shit." She was hurt that he would send her away so quickly.

"I know, Faith. Really, I do." Angel's face softened, understanding the wall of resentment the dark slayer was only a moment from resurrecting. He didn't want to be one more person turning her away. "But the slayer line needs you, and that means dealing with Buffy." He kept an eye on Faith out of the corner of his eye, as he turned to address Giles. "I was about to tell you earlier. It may be that something has happened to Buffy. Faith had a feeling." He saw the Englishman's face fall.

"A feeling?" There was a little crack in it.

The dark slayer didn't meet his eyes, looking down in the vicinity of her boots. "Yeah. I felt pain. And I know it was her." Angel saw the shadow of something that he didn't quite recognize flicker across her face.

"Dear Lord." Giles' words were less words than the exhale of a breath had been holding for some time.

Angel rushed on. "She doesn't know for sure. We don't know for sure. Just...something may have happened, so you should be prepared for the worst." He continued more quietly, moving close to Faith, speaking to her as he placed a hand tentatively on her shoulder. "And I can't go, not now. So if she's out there, I'm trusting you to make sure she's safe."

She met his eyes for a moment, then flipped her hair back over her shoulder and looked at Giles, sizing up how much not-fun this would be. "Ok, sure, why not? I'll be a kick to get to save blondie's ass." She kept her voice light, indifferent. "And if she ain't out there, well, I always was more the only child anyway."

Giles cleared his throat. "Will she be alright?" He glanced over at Wesley and Angel, and they knew he was not talking about Buffy. He received a shrug from the former and a nod from the latter.

"You coulda just asked me. Standin' right here." Faith cut in, and Giles kicked himself for not doing that and for taking another two steps back with her. There would have to be time later, he would have to make the time. He nodded at her in apology, and went on.

"Well, I'm not sure having Faith there would be the best tactic if we're hoping to _entice_ Buffy back to Sunnydale." He paused a moment, thinking, his eyes serious and sad. "However, I suppose that, if Buffy's no longer with us, Faith may be needed to take care of whatever might have defeated her." He took off his glasses, pinching the bridge of his nose, then finally put them back on. "Very well. If you'll join us Faith, Willow and I would love to have your help."

"Yeah, you know, whatever. Just tell Red she can't pull any of that magic shit on me."

Angel looked around. "Where is Willow, by the way? Didn't you say she was with..."

At that moment, they heard a honk from outside.

"There was some difficultly with the car, so I sent her to buy us something to drive to Cleveland." Giles explained as they all, except Angel, piled out into the afternoon sun to find Willow sitting up proudly in a 1980s-model blue Volvo station wagon.

Faith's eyes got wide, those dreams of her with just a motorcycle, a stake, leather pants, and the wind in her hair now crashing to the ground. "Oh, you gotta be fuckin' kidding me! Can I change my mind?"

* * *

"Are you going to leave, too?"

The blonde witch paused, hands hovering over the bandages, tape, gauze and assorted other medical sundries they were packing away into convenient on-the-slay kits. "I don't know, Dawnie. I hope not, I hope Willow and I can work it out, but I don't know."

The other girl gave a half smile, reaching across the bed to pick out a pink pouch that used to hold makeup freebies. She made sure to fish out all the good makeup, leaving only the icky orange lipstick that would be absolutely awful for Buffy's skin tone mixed in among the other necessities. "Thanks for being honest anyway."

They worked silently for a moment. "I'm sure Willow and Giles will bring her back."

"Yeah, but that's the point, isn't it, Tara? Shouldn't she _want_ to come back? Who wants someone you have to drag kicking and—"

Anya's scream of "Get in, get in, get in!" cut through the quiet of the house, punctuated with a bang of the front door swinging open and into the wall behind it, loud even upstairs where Dawn and Tara were. Girl had a great set of lungs. Dawn and Tara lunged off the bed for the door, Tara skidding to a stop, grabbing back for one of the first aid kits they'd been working on, then downstairs just as Anya was rushing a wounded Xander into the living room.

Dawn reached bottom first and, seeing the demon trying to come through the doorway, hit the door full-force, pinning one grasping claw between the door and the frame, with the rest of his body still mercifully outside. Tara was instantly at her side, pushing with her and together they could just about hold it closed. The younger Summers grabbed for the umbrella stand by the door and, in what likely represented its first and only use in sunny Southern California, whacked away at the arm still protruding into the house with it, managing, she thought with a small grin of pride, to make it flinch a little.

Or maybe that was just making it enraged as, with a burst, the demon came through the door, pushing Dawn and Tara back into the bottom stair. Dawn lashed out again with the umbrella-stand-as-sword and landed a good one right around what looked like its third eye. And, as it stumbled, roaring, the blonde witch raised a hand, muttering a few words under her breath before the demon suddenly flew back, out the doorway and off the porch. It sat stunned, then tried to run back at the house, only to find itself on the receiving end of a crossbow bolt to the heart. Dawn slowly lowered the weapon she'd taken from Anya as the demon stayed down.

"I've got it! Where is it?" At that moment, Spike came running up, knife in hand, tripping over the dead lump of demon in his hurry. "Oh, right then." He looked up at Dawn and Tara at the door, then back down to the carcass at his feet. "Remind me again why I took that ninny in there instead of the two of you."


	7. Chapter 7

A/N: My kingdom, or rather, my 800 sq. feet in downtown Los Angeles for a review! Good, bad, indifferent...

* * *

There was some "Hey, who let her out?" and a little "Don't worry...I don't bite" as Giles threw his bags in and walked around to the driver's side. Willow claimed shotgun for herself. Faith climbed in the backseat with her lack of bags, staring disconsolately away from Angel's crew and away from Angel himself, still somewhere inside, doing his own thing.

It took some time to navigate out of downtown Los Angeles and its attendant traffic. The redhead spent that time with her face buried resolutely in the map that would get them from there to Cleveland. Giles was locked in his own thoughts, in the possibility that Buffy might not be waiting for them when they arrived, that the last thing she would've thought of him was that he was leaving her.

"Are you sure?" A kind of half-whisper.

Giles realized that Willow had been speaking to him. "What's that?"

"Are you sure she's okay?" At first he thought she was talking about Buffy. But then he realized he hadn't told her yet. He hadn't been able to decide whether he should or whether that was the sort of thing better discovered in time if true. No, looking over at her, he could see her eyes darting nervously to the backseat where Faith was pretending that her slayer hearing wasn't that sharp. "Because, you know, it's always better to be safe than sorry."

"Angel and his friends were somewhat tied up at the moment. So Faith has offered to join us—"

"She volunteered?"

"Hey, maybe I did, Red. Maybe I wanna see what's up with Miss Chosen One and Only as much as you do."

Willow reddened at the voice from behind her. She sniffed, half turning around. "Last time you saw Buffy, you stole her body, slept with her boyfriend, and then got in a big fight with her before you ran away. _And_ you made my girlfriend uncomfortable. So maybe you can understand that I would be a little skeptical about how much you _care_." At Willow's words, Faith's cocksure expression slid a little, but hardened quickly again into indifference. She'd expected this.

The watcher looked over at the angry witch beside him, seeing how much the girl had wanted to be the one to find and bring back Buffy. How she needed that for herself, to forgive herself. "Willow...Willow." At the second one, she turned to look at him. "I think you should know...Angel and Faith believe something may have happened to Buffy out there. So we may need Faith in order to—"

The redhead flew out around fully to face the other girl, the same girl who'd held a knife to her throat once until Buffy saved her. But this time, Faith noticed that she was standing up for herself. Some power dynamic had changed. She filed that away as the witch got up in Faith's face, eyes flashing. "What did you do to her?"

The slayer rose to the familiar challenge, prepared to give as good as she got. "I didn't do shit. I've been in prison, remember?" She swallowed, eyes glazing for a moment. "I felt somethin' and it felt like B. In pain." The fire came back. "But I. Didn't. Do. It. Got that? Angel and Wes are the ones got me out. So, if you've got a problem, take it up with them. I'm just here because you guys needed muscle, and that's one thing I'm good for."

Willow looked like she wanted to snap back, but stopped. Buffy in pain. Again. Faith saw the guilt and pushed it.

"And it's not like I'm the one she was runnin' from this time." By the grimace she could tell she'd scored with that one. Served her right.

"Faith." A warning from Giles. But it felt good to ignore him.

"What? I get the shit for doing bad stuff and she gets a free pass?" Turning to Willow. Poking a little "What'd you do, Red? What'd you do that made her get outta Dodge?"

The redhead had tears now, not being as good at this game, looking from Giles to Faith to Giles again. "I didn't know! Tell her, Giles, I didn't know!"

The watcher sighed, thinking again that all of this might have been avoided if he'd just kept a closer eye on Willow. Even though they wouldn't have had Buffy. Such as she was. "After Buffy died, Willow brought her back."

"Black magic?" Faith arched an eyebrow. Giles nodded solemnly.

"We thought Willow had saved her from hell." Giles saw the light dawn on the dark slayer's face as she closed her eyes, saw Willow squeeze out angry tears. "It turned out that we were wrong."

Faith let out a slow whistle for all of them. "Now that's fucked up."

* * *

"You could have, you know."

"How's that, little Bit?" Spike sat on the bottom step of the basement, enjoying a smoke until the sun dipped below the horizon.

"You could've had me along instead of Xander last night."

The vampire snorted, still looking off into the dark corners of the room. "Idiot got his own stake turned round on him." Dawn nodded, remembering the look of the wound that cut a channel in the young man's arm. They were going to need more than a first aid kit at this rate. Spike took another drag. "No business bein' out there."

"That's what I'm saying, Spike. Xander shouldn't be out there. But I'm a better fighter than he is." Seeing the vampire's skeptical look. "Just because you haven't seen me doesn't mean I haven't been practicing. And it's not like I don't watch Buffy train."

"Watchin' and doin' are two different things." He turned to look her up and down. So different from her sister in so many ways, which made sense, what with them not really being sisters and all. But same stubborn streak. "'Sides, big sis would have my balls off for it."

"Maybe. But Buffy's not here anymore."

"No, you're right about that." He stood up, stubbing out his cigarette, the sun having slipped away into the night. "But the way I figure it, you either couldn't get away from those dancing minions or you didn't want to 'cause you wanted big sis to save you. And, right now, that means that, either way, you're dead out there on your own."

Dawn looked straight into him as he moved past her up the stairs. "I wouldn't have to be on my own."

He stared back at her for a moment. "When it suits you." Then turned away. "Bloody Summers women."

* * *

"Faith's with us." A pause, some talking on the other line. Willow's eyes flicked back into the backseat where that dark slayer was curled up against the window, the moonlight playing shadows on her face. "Yes, _that_ Faith." Another pause. "I know, baby, but Giles says...and I don't know, I guess..." As Tara's voice filtered in over that long distance, warning her to be safe, Willow stretched out her senses to wash them over the sleeping girl behind her, seeing an aura that was bright, flaring up in places with hurt still, but with little of the poisonous cold blood. The witch's eyes darted back to Giles as she reeled in that magic touch, finding him still oblivious in the dark road ahead of him. "I think she's okay."

Tara's voice, saying goodbye. Willow felt an ache inside of her. But at least she was still there, still at the house. That must mean she would wait until Willow got back. She would have time to fix things. Now she just had to get Buffy home. And as she drifted off to sleep, her head pressed against the window and the night as Giles drove on, she could even hear Buffy's name, softly in her ears.

Not knowing it came from the dark slayer's lips as she slept and dreamed.

* * *

"Are you dead?"

The older slayer looked down at herself as she lay tangled in the sheets, as if taking inventory and finding all body parts accounted for. A little wrinkle still in her forehead.

"I dunno." She looked over at Faith. "Are you?"

The dark slayer glanced down at herself, peeking underneath the covers to find herself naked there. Then over to the other girl, cocked up on an elbow, watching her. "If I am, it's a helluva lot better than I imagined." Or maybe it's hell. Shit. A searching look at the blonde. "Wait...you're not evil, are you?"

The corners of Buffy's mouth tipped up a little. "Would that make you get out of this bed, or stay in it?"

Faith grinned at that. "Didn't know you were so kinky, B."

"There's a lot you don't know about me." Those green eyes watched her, and Faith's own couldn't leave them, not even to slide down that bare, pale neck to the cream of the sheet...

The dark slayer kept her voice low and teasing. "Well, I know you've been trying to get me into bed since we first started havin' these dreams." Those eyes! She could almost feel the skin of the other girl. That nakedness she was sure was just underneath those covers. She couldn't lie and say she'd never thought about it.

"We've been in bed together for a while now."

That wasn't what she was expecting. Faith found her breath hitching in her throat as she fought to regain control of the conversation, the situation. How had Buffy managed to move so close to her? "This is more of that dream shit, isn't it?"

The blonde shrugged, and Faith looked down, surprised at the finger trailing its way from the pulse point at her wrist, up the sensitive skin of the underside of her arm. The turn at her shoulder. "What the fuck, B?" It was almost a plea. Buffy tracing her collarbone, a touch feather-light across her lips. Holy shit. "Is this you?" Hoarse. She felt like she couldn't move. The other girl's skin cool against hers.

"Isn't it?" A finger along Faith's jaw line, tipping her head up as Buffy kissed the neck revealed. "What if I want you?" The words whispered right into Faith's skin. And before Faith could shut her eyes, give in to what she wanted underneath the wants she knew about, she caught a glimmer in those eyes so near to hers. Uncertainty. Fear like a tiny light in them. And something else.

And, god help her, all Faith could do was shout "No!"


	8. Chapter 8

A/N: Sorry there was a little delay in getting this one up! Thanks for your patience and for reading!

* * *

Giles slammed on the brakes, the big blue tank of a car fishtailing a little as he did so.

"What!?" Giles yelling, spinning in his seat to face Faith. Willow started from her own sleep, looking around wildly.

"What!?" Faith yelled back.

"No what?"

"Huh?"

Giles took a deep breath, forcing his breathing back into a non-heart-attack-inducing regular rhythm. The hysteria went out of his voice and was replaced by a familiar dry tone. "You screamed out 'No!' a moment ago. Forgive me, but I thought there might be something wrong."

"Nope. 5 x 5 back here."

"Well, yes, I can see that now."

Willow was watching her closely. "Faith, people don't just scream loud enough to wake the dead for no reason. Did you have a bad dream? A slayer dream? Something about Buffy?"

"A bad dream? What are we in the third grade or something?" She saw the redhead roll her eyes and reminded herself that no one was attacking her right now. She took her own deep breaths. "Naw, it was no big. Just a nightmare about Wednesday's special meatloaf we used to have over at the prison. Scary stuff."

Now Giles had his chance to roll his eyes as he eased the Volvo back onto the road, heading towards where the sun was rising in the east.

Faith turned away, looking back out the window. No? Seriously? Who was she kidding? She almost groaned aloud at the thought of Buffy's lips at her neck. All that promise she'd never gotten a chance to explore, what with everything else that had come between the two of them. But no way she could feel the same. Miss Strictly-Het? The same girl who gutted her for trying to kill her once-in-a-lifetime, you-can't-make-this-shit-up love? No way.

And Faith couldn't even let herself dream about it.

What was she so afraid of?

Willow kept her eyes forward, but wondered herself at the fear she'd seen on the dark slayer's face. And took a petty comfort that she wasn't proud of in it.

Glancing out of the corner of her eye, the witch saw Giles' tired eyes firmly on the road. Careful to keep her own eyes ahead, she stretched her mind out behind her, almost like two mystical hands reaching out for Faith. She felt the other girl's defenses balk at her touch, even heard her murmur a little. She went on with a more stealthy touch, peeling back the layers of the younger girl's thoughts, trying to find the truth of that dream. It was harder to focus than she had thought it would be. She would have to work on it. Sharpen her skills so that she would be able to pull out more than these hazy images. These hazy images of...Buffy. Buffy and Faith in bed.

Her shock severed the link.

* * *

It wasn't until a gas stop the next day that Willow was able to sneak away to make a phone call.

"Xander, you are not going to believe this!"

"Well, hello to you, too, Will. S'up?"

"It's Faith..."

"Yeah, Tara already spread the word over here. Gotta say I'm gonna be the skeptic on this one, but Tara seemed to think you thought it was okay, so..."

"Not that...she's okay, I mean, she hasn't killed anybody or even really glared that much so far...but Faith and Buffy! Together!"

"Okaaay... Slow down. You're going to have to give me more than that."

From the background, Willow could hear Anya's voice cutting in. "Buy an 'E.' That always helps. There's always an 'E.'"

"Right, hon. Okay, I'll bite, Will, what's the deal? Did you find Buff?"

"No, but I think Faith has a crush on Buffy!"

The line was quiet for a moment. "And if we were in junior high, that would mean sending a little note saying 'do you like me? check yes or no.'" A pause. "Seriously, Will, you called me just to say that she has the hots for Buffy? That seems pretty much like Faith—so, no big surprise there. It's a fine line between lust and hate...or however that saying goes."

"I knew I should've called Tara. You don't seem very bothered by this, but this could just send Faith into a tailspin when Buffy rejects--and then we're just back in badness again--"

"Are you kidding, Will? I think I know first-hand that Faith's idea of a relationship isn't roses and a nice dinner. But Buffy knows that even more, um, first-handedly. So I'm not worried. And it's not like Buffy can't take care of herself." He cleared his throat. "And we'll both just ignore the implication that I can't."

"You make it sound like Buffy would actually be interested if it wasn't for...you know, everything."

"Oh, I don't know. Buffy's hot, Faith's hot...it's not hard to imagine. And if you're me, imagining it is pretty darn great. But—ow!" There was some muffled talking on his end of the line, some placating. "Anyway, you don't have a monopoly on being gay, you know." A pause. "So...did Faith tell you this? Aren't you guys supposed to be looking for Buffy?"

"We are! We're still on the way, and we should be in Cleveland by this evening, hopefully, if Giles can actually drive the speed limit instead of five miles under it." She stopped for a minute, and Xander could hear the dark slayer's voice over the distance. "Look I gotta go." And then she was gone, leaving Xander staring at the phone.

"Yeah, we're doing fine here, too. Thanks for asking."

* * *

They did finally make it, after two full days of straight driving, Giles doing most of it, though Willow spelled him occasionally. No one let Faith drive, of course, but that was fine with her. She was still in a daze from her dream, torn between wanting to stay up and wanting to go back to sleep to dream.

Now that they were there, finally, that knot in the pit of her stomach made her jumpy, anxious to get out and run through those streets until she ran down the tingle that told her Buffy was there. Somewhere. The alleys of Cleveland were dark and unfamiliar as they cruised slowly through the streets, unsure where to stop, whether to go ahead and get a hotel room.

But as Giles and Faith squinted into the night, Willow whispered under her breath, her chanting not noticed until she grabbed for Giles' arm, and he turned to look over at her, eyes wide at the glowing dot that drifted in front of Willow. That dot darted out, through the window, and through the streets.

"Follow it, Giles!"

And follow he did, the Volvo lurching forward to keep up with the dancing light.

"Faster, G-man! No, it went left. Left!" Faith leaned up between the two front seats, her head bobbing in between the Englishman and the redhead as all leaned forward.

"I hear you, Faith. You needn't—"

"That's the streetlight you're following...the fairy light thingy went that way!"

He looked over and saw her pointing and followed her finger, turning down a small side street until they could go no farther in the car. They all piled out, Faith far ahead with the advantage of her slayer speed. Giles and Willow hurried to catch up.

"Wait, Faith! Wait for us!" Willow's voice was high, hysteric. She couldn't lose track of the light! That was her spell to find Buffy! Looking over at Giles, the two of them weren't sure whether to be more worried about what they would find, or about Faith finding it. They could only hear her boots in the distance now.

Until they got closer. And started to hear the sounds of a fight.

"Giles, it's Faith...we need to stop her! We need to be there!" She started to pull away from the older Brit and threw back at him: "I _told_ you this wasn't a good idea!" He tried to shout after her, to say they didn't know that, but she wasn't listening anymore. The fight was getting closer. And as they burst through a dark open doorway and into a large open warehouse, the sounds of the fight hit them full force with the growls of something non-human.

A blur of pale skin, blonde hair was in the shadows, fighting four large demons with dark, scaly skin.

Faith had stopped in the middle of the floor, her brow furrowed, mouth open as she was able to pick out her blonde counterpart knocking one demon literally into the wall. Giles and Willow had nearly reached Faith when she started from her trance, dashing forward as she saw one demon moving towards the Chosen One's blind side.

"Buffy! Is that y—?" Willow's voice arrived before Faith, but only by a few seconds. And then the dark slayer was slamming into the side of one demon, startling it enough to knock it to the ground. Over that downed body, she looked up at the girl she'd last seen in her dreams, finding her thin, wild-eyed. And, in those green eyes, she knew that Buffy had had the same dream and was shaking her head now, trying to determine whether Faith was real or imagined.

"Fai—?"

But she couldn't get the word out before, one of the scaly bastards took advantage of the distraction, and, with a growl, landed a horny fist into her side. The blonde stumbled and nearly fell, breaking eye contact with Faith as she spun around. In the dark, the dark slayer could hardly make out the turn, but could see the flash of a large knife and hear another growl, as the other slayer took several fingers off a scaly hand.

And then Faith had no time to watch as she was attacked, too, finding herself with only her fists as weapons. Which, as it turned out, was not as effective as she might have hoped. Her opponent was hardly fazed as she pounded away on the thick skin. So she resorted to a roundhouse that caught him/her/it? in the slightly thinner skin around his neck. She had only a moment to grin a big "take that, motherfucker!" as the demon staggered back before she was knocked to the floor by another one behind her.

In a flash it was on her back, banging her head into the floor. She fought to twist around, wrenching her hair out of its grip, and, turning, saw a knife come through the shoulder of her attacker and nearly slice into her. The demon roared, springing up and back, nearly running into Willow, who had started to try to step in.

"No! Get out of here!" Buffy yelled at her old friend from the shadows, grabbing the demon back by its wounded shoulder. In its pain, it turned again on her. Faith, now free, sprang up, taking in in a moment that two of the demons were down, unmoving and bloody. Another was moving to stop her from helping Buffy, but she launched herself again at that weak spot on the neck and, in a burst of the sort of slayer energy she hadn't gotten to use in so long, the slayer energy she'd been saving up, felt the bones crack under the pressure of her kick. It felt so good to kick like that! To feel the solid, dead-on impact! To see it go down. And she followed it, kicking at it even as it floundered on the floor, kicking it so that it lifted a little off the floor with the force of it and she lorded over it.

Until she heard Buffy yelling her name behind her. She shook her head, and the red heat of the moment faded a little as she turned to see her counterpart getting the worse end of a punch to the side of her head. Her knife had already skittered away on the floor. And Willow had picked it up. Giles reached out to try to catch the redhead, but wasn't fast enough to get her before she dove in, inexperienced and clumsy in the dark, catching the demon in the arm, but, in her wild strike, slicing into Buffy's arm as well. The blonde let out a cry, and Faith cried out her name, yanking the knife from Willow's hand and plunging it into the demon's belly until it fell, still, to the floor.

Buffy was still stumbling back, grasping at the gash in her arm, looking up at Willow's face, then Giles', then finally Faith's. And then she turned and ran off into the night.

Willow's face fell, and she yelled out Buffy's name.

Faith just took off after her.


	9. Chapter 9

A/N: Your reviews quickened my pace--here's another for you!

* * *

For a while, Faith didn't think she would be able to catch her. And Faith prided herself on being able to run pretty goddamned fast. She spotted the garbage cans strewn across the middle of the alleyway and just barely had time to hurdle them, stumbling a little on the landing. The alleyway opened out onto a deserted street in the gloom and silence of the very early morning, and she burst into it, eyes flashing with the chase.

Across the street was that most familiar of places: a graveyard. Running into it, after the flash of blonde she glimpsed ahead, she thought that they all looked the same. Dead was dead was dead. And always a haven for the undead. Her slayer senses were still picking up the tinge of vampire that she'd felt since they'd all piled out of the car. No doubt a slayer-less town made for lots of vamps. She kept an eye out, but only half-heartedly, confident she could get back on that vamp-killing horse without too much trouble. Stake and move on.

In the stone monuments and the shadows they cast, Faih lost track of the other slayer. She slowed her pace a little, listening.

And was promptly greeted as she rounded the edge of a mausoleum by a fist to the jaw, knocking her sideways.

"Shit!"

"What's the matter, Faith? Prison make you soft?" The blonde sniffed at her, still pale and tense, still bleeding from the gash on her arm. "Don't they have weights and stuff in there? Didn't you have a chance to shank someone...you know, hone your skills?"

The dark slayer flashed back. "Maybe I should have, given that you're the old pro around here at that!" She rubbed her jaw. "Fuck, B! I like you a lot better in my dreams. A lot fuckin' nicer anyway."

"Yeah, and that's why they're called _dreams_, Faith." Her voice was sharp, but her eyes betrayed it, and Faith caught the shadow that crossed them and made the hollows around those eyes seem even deeper. But she couldn't quite read it. And didn't have time to before a foot caught her right in the gut, making her cry out at the unexpected assault.

"Jesus!" Recovering, she came into her own fighting stance, never one to allow this many freebies before striking back. "Whatsa matter, B? You don't like what _your_ dream was? Ain't so proud that you wanted to have a little fun with the girl you hate? Thought that was what you _wanted_." She got a wince out of the blonde with that one. And followed it up with a kick that caught the other girl in the ribs because, hey, Buffy'd started it.

The blonde slayer took it, and took Faith's foot before she had a chance to draw it back, pulling her in close enough for a quick jab to the gut. Faith stuck back with an uppercut that caught Buffy's chin, snapping her head back a little so that she had to shake off the daze.

"For the record, I didn't start this one, B." She was breathing heavy. "'Course, nobody's gonna believe me, especially not your friends probably on their way over here right now—" She was interrupted by a growl from the other girl, another flurry of punches that made her stop talking to fend them off. She'd missed the push of fighting against another slayer. And even though the Buffy in front of her was thin to the point of gaunt, she was still packing a helluva punch. So Faith gave as good as she got.

Buffy kept on goading her. "Yeah, you're right." A kick made it in under Faith's radar, but she spun off of it to swipe Buffy's feet out from under her. Buffy went down, but pulled Faith down with her. "Nobody's gonna believe you because, hey, you've always wanted to kill me, haven't you?" The blonde rolled the brunette under her, pinning her, trapping her so that she would lash out. Her voice dropped to a whisper, and she bent close to Faith's neck. Faith ached at the similarity between this and the dream. She saw the recognition of that flitter across Buffy's face, too, and saw those wild eyes slip down to the spot on her neck that Buffy had kissed in that dream. A whisper of a challenge and a plea. "So why don't you do it?"

But Faith couldn't do it. Not then. Not when she wanted nothing more than to—

So Buffy's fist hit the side of her face once and then again, drawing blood from her lip, arms pinning her down. And, for a moment, it was enough to make Faith oblige, fall into that familiar pattern, reaching out a hand around the gash on Buffy's arm, squeezing and hearing the other girl cry out as the dark slayer got one leg free and managed to hook it around, rolling the blonde under her.

Until she stopped, sliding off to one side. "This isn't—" She shook her head to clear it, to push Buffy out of it for a moment. Then raised her eyes to scan the graveyard around them, looking for something to make a weapon out of. "We don't have time for this, B. Vamps. Close. You gotta feel it, too. They've been following us or somethin'. I need a stake." The last words came out as a hiss, the tingling in her so insistent now that her attention wasn't on Buffy. But as she looked from the graveyard down to the blonde, she found the other girl still lying flat on her back, hands over her face, unmoving.

The older slayer's voice was hoarse when she spoke, with little of its earlier edge.

"Faith, there's just the two of us here."

It hit the dark slayer just as she heard Willow and Giles calling out Buffy's name, their search getting closer.

Buffy went on, laying a hand on Faith's arm. "They can't know..."

And, this time, when the blonde ran off again, away from the approaching dawn, Faith let her go.

* * *

Giles and Willow were panting hard when they ran up.

"Faith! Oh my god, where's Buffy?"

They didn't ask how she was, with her lip split, lying on the ground. "Couldn't find her. Got waylaid by a vamp." Seeing the two of them looking around worriedly, she threw in: "Dusted that ass."

Willow was already chanting the locator spell before Faith had even stopped talking. Giles grabbed the redhead's arm, breaking her concentration.

"Giles! It won't take but just..."

"No, Willow." His voice was quiet as he looked down at her, understanding the need there because he felt it, too. "She doesn't want to be found right now."

"But you can't be ser—"

"I didn't say we wouldn't try later, or that we wouldn't stay a few days and hope she comes to us. But if we go after her now, we may just push her further away."

The redhead didn't want to see the wisdom in what he was saying, so she looked to the dark slayer, still sitting on the grass at her feet, looking down at her arm where the other girl had touched it. "Faith, I know _you_ want to find her!" Seeing the dark slayer's head snap up quickly, she rushed on. "Because, you know, you guys have a slayer bond and that's pretty powerful and even though I know I'm sure you hate her, you _did_ offer to come with us and help find her...so let's do that!"

But the younger girl just shook her head. "Gonna side with G-man on this one, Red. She saw us. She bailed."

And so Willow was forced to leave it at that for the time, as the three of them walked silently back to the car, each in their own thoughts.

* * *

It was mid-morning by the time they found a hotel. And it was midday by the time they'd managed to eat something and collapse into sleep, after some awkward bed negotiation that left Willow in one double bed, Faith sprawled across the other, and Giles on a cot that had been brought in and folded out.

Giles' sleep was restless, tossing and turning on that thin mattress, with a bar digging into his back. His slayer...Buffy was alive and well. And she didn't want to have anything to do with him.

The tortured logic of leaving so that she could figure things out on her own had made her truly on her own, out here with nothing and no one. Even though slayers had been doing that for centuries, even though watchers had kept it that way, he knew in his heart that it would kill her. Or at least kill the part of her that he knew.

Could he be her watcher here, just the two of them? Could the slayer have a watcher she didn't want and maybe didn't need? Would there be a point? Could he leave if there was even a question of there being a point?

Faith slept and dreamt of Buffy. Of those lips at her neck. The danger in them. The conflict in her own body that screamed at her to kill the older slayer. It screamed at her to do what she did best. To take a stake and end any confusion.

But Buffy's hand on her arm! That voice that needed her, pleaded with her! And as she slept, like a siren song—cutting through her thoughts, even through the dream—she felt Buffy calling to her, tugging at the slayer connection between them.

She heard it and, waking, she moved to go to the other half of her, slipping out of the hotel room into the late afternoon sun.

Willow slept, but fitfully, seeing the blonde seeing her and running away from her over and over again. She felt her hand around the knife as it had met the resistance of Buffy's flesh. She'd hurt her again. Another wound to try to bandage. If Buffy would let her.

If she could just find her again, like she'd found her once already. Find her and make her stay long enough to hear her out this time. She knew if she could just get a few minutes alone with her old friend, make her see that nothing had changed--really!--it would all be alright.

She slept, but fitfully. So when Faith started from her dream, sat up on her bed, slipped on her boots and crept across the floor, Willow woke. She woke, but didn't betray herself, listening instead as the dark slayer clicked the door shut softly behind her. And then, suspecting that wherever she was going, it would one way or another lead to Buffy, she followed her out.


	10. Chapter 10

A/N: I can't thank you enough for all the reviews!

* * *

Xander and Anya hadn't asked Dawn where she was going, and she sure wasn't going to tell them. Tara had asked, and hadn't been satisfied with Dawn's answer that she was meeting friends at the mall, but she'd let her go anyway. Spike wasn't going to tell anyone. She met up with him a block away as he leaned against a tree across from a cemetery, smoking.

"You ready?" He gave her the once-over, suspecting she'd actually raided Buffy's closet for this little slaying party. Raided it on purpose to make sure he kept his promise to take her slaying. Dawn didn't say anything, just nodded as she patted the stake in her pocket. "Right then."

The two of them set off into the graves.

Spike's voice interrupted the quiet. "So do you think they've found her yet?"

The younger Summers looked over at the vampire as he tried to look nonchalant. She shrugged. "Nobody tells me anything. Supposedly Faith's helping now." Spike raised an eyebrow at that.

"The rogue slayer?" He took a drag. "Nice."

"Yeah, if she comes back now, it'll probably be in a body bag."

They both walked on in silence for a moment until, out of the corner of her eye, Dawn saw Spike tense and she did the same, pulling out her stake.

"Three of 'em." He nodded to the left. "Comin' that way." He moved around on her left side.

"I can take them, you know." She hissed, not liking the fact that she was now relegated to backup.

He didn't turn around, speaking to her over his shoulder. "Look, I get to hit something and, with you there, can be pretty sure something won't stake me in the back while I'm at it. So it's a win-win for me, you see. If you're in front, I've got to be all wor—"

Spike couldn't get it all out before the vamps were on them, growling at the unanticipated fight in their prey. Given that this was Sunnydale, home of the slayer, they should have done more anticipating, but maybe the word was getting around that the Chosen One had gone AWOL. The first two ran straight at Spike. The third came around for Dawn with a leer. She kicked out at him, landing a solid one in his gut. That surprised him. But, after taking a step back, she knew he wouldn't be surprised again, and she lowered into a fighting stance, vaguely aware that Spike was in the middle of a good wailing on the other two.

The vamp decided on a bull rush, coming at her with superhuman speed as she ducked aside, sticking her foot out to trip him. But, instead of pratfall comedy, she got dragged down with him, rolling over in the dirt, feeling his teeth only inches from her jugular. Dawn fumbled for a good grip on her stake, elbowing him so she could raise up and plunge it down. Only to have the vamp bat it easily away so that it skittered, harmlessly and uselessly, among the gravestones.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Spike look over at her and, with a little curl of his lip, finish the last vamp he was working on. "Now see, this is exactly what I was talking—"

But before he could finish, she'd pulled another stake from her boot. One that Spike hadn't seen coming, and one that the vamp under her hadn't seen coming until it was planted in his chest. With a thud she fell into the ground as the dust swirled under her, then looked back up at the blonde vampire.

"You were saying?"

* * *

"I felt it, you know. Both times."

When she found the blonde, she was pacing, jittery. Pale and thin. And, looking at her, Faith could see it now. How had she missed it before? As Faith spoke, the older slayer turned big green eyes on her, but said nothing.

"Don't ask me how, but I did." The brunette smiled a little. "Fact you're responsible for one nasty-ass bruise on my head from the first go 'round and my face plant into some meatloaf on the second." That got a little smile out of the other girl. "So next time you're gonna die, do me a favor and give me a head's up so I can scout a chair or somethin'." Now she was trying for that smile, in spite of everything.

And she got it as she saw the other girl imagining her with meatloaf as hair accessory. Buffy cocked her head a little at her.

"What?" Faith couldn't help but smile back. It would be great if it could just go on like this.

"I was just thinking...I don't know exactly where we went wrong, but it's a shame. It would've been good to not be alone." The shadow returned to her face.

"Well, you know, we never do anything by halves." She pointed up at her bruised jaw. "Exhibit A from yesterday. You keep a girl on her toes."

"You know why I did it. Who would've thought you would be so hard to provoke?" She paused for a moment, smiling a little at Faith, then squeezing her eyes shut and turning to look again at the moon. "I'm not going to have to do that this time, am I?" The green eyes shifted back down to hold Faith's. Their intensity was shocking, otherworldly. They did not need to look down to see the stake in Faith's hand because they could see the slayer battling for control in the brunette's eyes. Buffy could almost feel her own body recoiling at itself, so she knew what Faith must feel. Their proximity was difficult to bear.

But Buffy couldn't stop herself from closing that distance even more.

Faith watched the older slayer in front of her. Could almost see the caged animal in her, even as she knew Buffy wanted her to see it, wanted her to see what she needed to see so that Faith could take care of it for both of them.

But it could not be that easy.

"Yeah, I heard you callin' me this time, too. Figured what you wanted—" She continued to eye the other girl carefully. "—so I brought my bag of tricks." She twirled the stake in one hand. "But you gotta tell me why I should."

Buffy blinked. Startled by the question's obvious answer. So obvious...did it need to even be said? "Because of what I am...I deserve to die."

A long pause. And then Faith slid the stake back in her boot, nodding as if she knew she'd get that answer. "Which means you don't."

The blonde's eyes flashed at that and the shadows on her face, the angular shape of her bones, looked even more forbidding in the moonlight. She stepped forward, into Faith's personal space. "You have to! I can't live like this!"

Faith used her tongue to deflect her nervousness and stood her ground. "Don't mean to be picky, but you ain't livin' anymore." The blonde slayer was almost shaking in front of her, pupils wide and black, a hair's breadth away from lashing out. "And you can try to wail on me again if it makes you feel better, but I'm still not gonna do it." She softened a little. "Look, you've lost a lot. I know." Those words hit Buffy in the stomach. "I know, and you and I are finally both in the same place, hovering right about at nothin' to lose." She paused, looking the other girl dead in the eye. "But, close as you are, I can tell you haven't lost everything with...this. So I'm not gonna be the one that takes what's left. Not again."

The last two words were an apology, a challenge, a promise. And Buffy picked up on all of it, her anger cracking into a slow hysteria with the strain of all of it at once. When she spoke her voice was choked.

"I felt you, too, you know. That night. On the rooftop. I felt what I did." She reached out a hand, fingers finding their way under the material of the shirt to brush across the scar she'd given the other girl, one of the visible ones. The shock of cool on hot hit both of them.

And at that shock, Buffy shied back from how close they were. How close she was. She looked away, her body shivering from the feeling of that heat and the blood that provided it. Faith stepped forward, drawn in. Buffy began to panic, her eyes running over Faith's body before she forced them to look into the dark of the night instead.

"Faith, please!" The words were a hiss.

The brunette was watching her closely, eyes shadowed at first with desire, but then opening wide as they took in the hollows around the older slayer's eyes, the gauntness of her frame.

"Shit, B! You haven't— It's been how many days since—" Reaching out for Buffy's arm. The blonde shut her eyes against the blood she could feel under the skin of that hand.

Desperation. "I can't!"

"You have to!"

"I can't!" But against her will, despite the control she'd exerted so far, her face shifted, teeth elongating in the moonlight. Buffy tried to shake it off. Revert. But Faith was too close, she had waited too long already.

"You'll go insane! You're fuckin' on the edge already!"

Buffy could feel her knees weakening as Faith held the two of them close. She could feel that edge.

"I can't!"

A pause. "Let me help."

The older slayer's wild eyes shot up to meet her own, lips parted a little. When she spoke, it was barely a whisper. "No, no, no, no..."

"For fuck's sake, B, I didn't ask you to take it all! But, if you don't take some right now, you'll do something worse..." A pause, quieter. "You know I can stop you."

She brought her forehead against the other girl's, choking the slayer in her down. And in that proximity, she leaned forward, touching her lips to the other girl's, feeling Buffy's groan into her mouth. And her own, answering. She reached up to take the back of Buffy's neck, holding her into that kiss, even though neither of them wanted to leave it. The desperation in their mouths! Faith raised her chin a little so that the smaller girl's mouth found its way down her neck, a trail of icy fire against her skin that made Faith's own knees weak, until she stiffened as Buffy's lips trembled over the spot in her neck that she'd found in the dream. Trembled there as Faith quivered herself with the need to run away and the need to be right there.

And then Buffy could hold out no longer and Faith felt the teeth slide in, urgent and painful.

She hoped that what she'd said about stopping had been true.


	11. Chapter 11

A/N: See, I don't make you wait too long! Thanks again for reading!

* * *

Willow lost Faith fairly early on. Not surprising, given slayer speed and Faith's head start. But the redhead was surprised nonetheless. She had imagined that she would follow the dark slayer as she roamed the streets, looking for Buffy. Instead, the brunette had been off like a shot, running straight into the evening as if she knew exactly where that other slayer was.

Leaving Willow—who didn't know—far behind.

And lost.

So, what else but to try another locator spell, get it fixed on her old friend, and follow that little bright spot herself. And follow it she did, wondering as she went what she would find at its end.

Faith and Buffy? Emphasis on the "and."

Goddess, how weird was that!

But she knew what she'd seen: Faith dreaming she was in bed with Buffy. Not that it was surprising that the dark slayer would be into that sort of thing. She was the "do that" girl, after all. And Willow, looking back, could detect the early signs of a Buffy crush: the heart on the window pane, all those times Faith dragged Buffy away to slay. Had she really _had_ to wear all those low-cut blouses to slay in? And do we even have to say anything about the whole switching bodies thing?

Willow had to admit, as any red-blooded woman would, that Buffy was pretty dadgum gorgeous. Given how much she'd looked like every Hollywood incarnation of an angel to Willow in the hall that day at school, it wasn't hard to imagine what she would look like to someone like Faith, coming from where she did. Buffy could look like just the girl to save you. And maybe Faith, trying her reform on for size, thought the beautiful Chosen One could be a part of that salvation.

Let's just hope she didn't bank on that too much. Didn't flip out too much when it didn't happen.

Because if there was one thing Willow knew, after all those talks at the Espresso Pump, all those pints of ice cream over Angel and Riley and even Parker, for goodness' sake, it was that Buffy liked her love and angst with a big serving of man to go with it.

Faith wouldn't know that. She'd never been that kind of close with Buffy.

So it was not surprising when Willow followed her spell all the way to the Chosen One only to find Faith trying to clasp that older slayer to her. Faith as drowning man, Buffy as lifesaver.

Except lifesavers didn't usually have fangs.

For a moment, Willow could only stare, dumbfounded, at the blonde she once knew. The blonde that was now holding up the dark slayer, whose body was pressed into the older girl's, her head thrown back and to one side. The blonde with one hand splayed across the middle of Faith's back, under the shirt, while a hand cupped the side of Faith's neck. The other side, that is. Not the side where her fangs had sunk in, feeding.

"No!"

When Willow had planned for this trip, she had actually worked on spells they might need, just in case. The locator spell she had down, of course, but she'd also been working on another, a more offensive spell, in case the muscle Giles had in mind to bring along had fallen through. That spelled had called for the usual assortment of unpleasant ingredients. In her haste to follow Faith, she had not brought them with her here. But the chant was still there, in the recesses of her mind. And in the spur of this moment, when there was only her old friend—now monster—feeding, and when Willow had to do _something_ to stop it, that recess raised up with a _pick me, pick me_.

And pick it Willow did, not even knowing she was chanting, even without the ingredients, so that at the word "No!" the energy around her gathered and flew at the vampire, slamming into her.

Faith fell back, released, grasping at her neck.

Willow stumbled a little, putting her hand to her head as she was hit by a backlash of the power she'd unleashed.

Buffy just fell down, crumpling to the floor.

The dark slayer dove down beside her counterpart, reflexively going for the pulse points. Getting nothing, of course, she gave a "motherfucker!" under her breath. Then, seeing Willow, she ran for her, catching the redhead around the throat and backing her into the wall.

"What the fuck did you do to her, Red!? Is she ali— Scratch that...is she okay!?"

"I...I don't know. I didn't know I could do that." Her voice was quiet, amazed as she shook her head against the oncoming headache.

"I don't fuckin' care what you can or can't do...I ain't givin' out gold stars. I care what your magic shit did to B!" With the last part, she tightened her grip a little and the witch gasped a little, struggling against her. Willow's eyes grew wide and scared.

"I really don't think you need to...Faith, you've got to let me go. You're hurting me...please! I didn't know! Don't kill me!"

At that, the dark slayer almost screamed in frustration. "Kill you? I'm not the one shootin' magic beams at people, for chrissakes! Now one more time: Is. She. Okay?"

"I told you, I don't know. I guess, 'cause you know it's just a sort of incapacitation spell, so it shouldn't really kill her, though of course, she's already—. But Buffy's a vampire! How could she be a vampire? Goddess, that means she's dead! Buffy's dead!" Willow looked over, shocked, at the still form sprawled on the floor. The blonde's face had returned to normal, as if she were just asleep. Except for the little trickle of blood at the corner of her mouth.

Following her gaze, Faith watched the other slayer, too, putting her hand up to the wound at her neck and feeling the wetness there. She saw that Buffy's frame was a little less angular, her skin a little less pale than it had been before. Willow's voice cut into her thoughts.

"Can you pick her up?" The dark slayer was already moving to do so, gently lifting the limp blonde into her arms. The redhead's voice had an undercurrent of resolve, and Faith knew that meant she had a plan. These Scoobs were plan people. "We've got to get her back to Giles and back to Sunnydale to fix this."

That stopped her. Faith's brows knit in confusion as she looked from the still slayer in her arms to the witch. "Whoah...what do you mean 'fix'?" A glimmer of understanding and Faith's lip curled. "You can't seriously be gonna try to raise her from the dead again, 'cause that was fucked up the first time."

Willow shut her eyes at the indictment. It was true. And it was what she'd come here to fix the first time around, for all the good that did now. "No. Not again." She looked over at the brunette, who was watching her carefully. Willow in turn glanced down at the wound on Faith's neck. If a slayer couldn't hold Buffy off... She mentally tightened her control on the spell over Buffy, feeling the headache settling in. "But we can make it better. She doesn't have to be like this."

And, in the end, Faith was willing to let it go at that, as Willow had suspected she would. So the two of them, and the fallen slayer, rushed back to pick up Giles.

* * *

"You can't take an unconscious person on a plane, Willow."

"We can just tell them she's drunk."

"You can't take a drunk person on a plane either, Red."

"Well, then I'll just have to do a quick glamour for long enough to get her on there as she is." She glared over at Giles, who looked as though he was about to say something. "Unless you'd rather have a vampire running loose on the airplane."

"I'd rather be going with you on the airplane is what I'd rather be doing."

"Giles, we've been through this. _You _were the one who said we didn't have the money to fly everybody and that you would need a car when you got back to Sunnydale anyway. And I can't hold her like this for long enough for a roadtrip. So I've got to go to keep Buffy unconscious and Faith's there for insurance. We'll be fine, and then you'll be there in two days, so everything will be fine then, too. But right now we've got to get to the airport so we can get on a red-eye tonight."

As Giles grabbed the car keys and threw his bags in the back, Faith could hear him muttering. "We're about as far from fine as one could imagine."

It was certainly true for him. When Faith had brought Buffy in and laid her down on the bed, he had looked as absolutely helpless as she'd ever seen him. He probably would have cried if it hadn't been for Willow starting in on what needed to be done. Faith let him carry Buffy out to the car and place her gently in the front seat next to him.

She could tell that, as soon as he dropped them off, he would be on road back to Sunnydale. She didn't envy him that lonely trip.

* * *

"You need me to do what, baby? I don't understand. Did you find Buffy?" Tara had taken the call in the living room, sitting with Xander and Anya on the couch as they all half-watched the television. At her words, Xander nearly jumped up to take the phone from her, but she put up a hand to stop him, straining to hear her girlfriend through the airport noise at the other end.

"Oh."

Xander flicked off the television impatiently, turning back to stare at Tara, waiting for some sort of sign.

More talking on the other end.

"Willow, nobody could've done anything." Xander's shoulders slumped at that, and Anya reached over to put an arm around them. "We can just...Wait, what?" She leaned in as though she could really get closer to Willow that way, to make out what she was saying on the other end.

"Here? You're bringing her here? Do you think that's—" A pause. "How are you... What kind of spell?" The response on the other end was short. "No, I guess it doesn't matter. No, we don't really have a choice, do we? I think I can help. When you get close enough I'll feel you near, and I can reach out to provide a little extra support. That should be enough to hold until you're here. What else do you need?" Another pause and Xander could almost make out the tinny voice of his old friend. "I can have Anya get that." A few last words. "Okay, a few hours then."

As she placed the receiver back in the cradle, she turned to the expectant faces, wondering how on earth to tell them.

And, several hours later, all three of them wondered how to tell Dawn.

The younger Summers sauntered through the front door. She seemed surprised to find them all there, but not exactly displeased.

"Where have you been, Dawn? We've been waiting here and..." Xander noticed Spike loitering just outside on the porch, smoking. "Were you with Spike?"

"Yes, I was. We were slaying, as a matter of fact. And I dusted two." She crossed her arms in front of her, daring them to say she shouldn't be doing it now.

For a moment, the three just looked at her.

Then Anya broke the silence. "Well, this is good timing. Your sister's a vampire and Willow and Tara are going to try to save her, but now you'll be able to slay her if they can't."


	12. Chapter 12

A/N: Went on kinda long on this one--let's say I was inspired. As always, reviews are greatly appreciated, hoarded, read, and considered!

* * *

"Is this what it's supposed to look like?"

Faith couldn't help her question. Buffy lay across a cot in the basement where Faith had set her down. She was still unconscious, but turning and murmuring now, her face creased as if she were in pain. Faith stood a little off to the side, largely ignored after the initial wary glance from Anya and the scowl from Dawn. Nobody'd clued her in on the spell, but the Scoobs all seemed to know the plan. All she could do was watch. Which was pretty frustrating, really.

"You said this would make her better!" There was a question in that, too, and the dark slayer was beginning to wish she'd asked more questions earlier. Tossing and turning didn't seem like better. But the redhead sure wasn't going to fill her in now, in the middle of her casting.

"Is she okay? Will?" Even Xander was beginning to doubt. The two witches kept chanting.

He shifted his eyes from the increasingly restless Buffy to Willow, who was standing over, with circles around her eyes that betrayed the exhaustion of keeping Buffy unconscious for so long. Even with Tara's help, and even though they'd started the spell not five minutes after Faith and Willow had burst through the door at 3 am., cradling the slayer. Xander thought she was as near the breaking point as the first time she'd tried this spell, when it was a different vampire they were dealing with.

Between the redhead and Buffy and Tara and the still-dark Orb of Thesulah in front of them, nobody could tell him anything. The only person who'd seen the spell work once was Buffy, and she wasn't in any position to share.

Dawn wanted to believe, sitting next to Buffy, but her eyes were wide and worried as she tried to keep the hair out of her sister's face.

Despite her soothing, the blonde slayer struggled on the bed, her back bowing now as the spell tried to course its way through her, into her. Faith looked as though she was about to leap across the bed and strangle Willow, held back only by her confusion as to whether Buffy's pain was one of those good hurts. Maybe this is what getting better looked like. She didn't know. The blonde glistened with sweat as she writhed under the chant, a cry escaping her lips. Maybe it wasn't worth it.

Tara, too, was glancing down now at Buffy's struggling form, then back over to Willow, who was still chanting as though she would make the spell work by will alone. Tara's voice faltered and dropped away from the chant. "Willow, I don't think this is..." But the redhead wasn't listening to her. Buffy cried out again. Reaching out her mind, Tara washed her senses gently over Buffy, trying to calm the still unconscious girl, but then seeing something else.

"Willow, stop!!" When Willow didn't stop, Tara clamped a hand over her girlfriend's mouth, knowing it might be even more dangerous to let her go on. Once Faith saw Tara's hand, she dashed in, figuring that the blonde witch had proved her instincts were right. In a rush, she pulled Willow off her feet and over into the wall. The force of hitting that wall effectively stopped her chant mid-Latin.

"You were gonna make her better!"

Anya screamed. "Murderer on the loose! Every woman for herself!" She dashed halfway up the basement stairs, stopping only to reach back to drag Xander after her. But he was pulling the other way, straining towards Faith. In a jerk, he got away from Anya and grabbed the dark slayer by the shoulders, hauling her back. She almost hit him, but Dawn grabbed her hand just as she cocked it.

Shaken, Willow managed to croak out "That's what I was trying to do until you—!"

Tara's voice cut her off. "Willow, Buffy still has a soul!"

"What?" The shouts from Willow, Xander, and Dawn filled the room. Faith just looked confused.

"Well, duh!" Then the light dawned. "Oh shit! Were y'all trying to do that thing like with Angel?" Everyone looked over at her, but she just stared back at Willow. "You just said you were gonna make her better!" Willow could only sputter. Tara asked the question for all of them.

"You knew?"

"Yeah, I fuckin' knew!" She pointed an angry finger at the redhead. "I thought _she_ knew!"

Willow found her voice. "Me!? How was I supposed to know? I just came up and saw you holding on to her and her biting your neck...what was I supposed to think?"

Tara crossed her arms over her chest. "You didn't make sure? Willow, we could've..."

With a shrug, Faith got free of Xander and Dawn. "Why would I be holding on to her if I thought she didn't have a soul?"

"You have a crush on her, so I thought—"

Faith opened her mouth in shock, then shut it, then opened it again to fire back. But she was cut off by Dawn, who was looking at her like she had two heads.

"You have a crush on my sister?"

Faith turned, but was preempted again, this time by Xander. "Why didn't you let Willow know Buffy was still in there?" The dark slayer whirled back around to face him.

"'Cause I didn't think I fuckin' had to! Jesus! Red told me she could make Buffy better, and she's all down with the witch fu these days so how am I supposed to have known she was gonna try soul cursing? Sue me for thinkin' she knew what she was doing!"

Tara glanced sharply over at Willow. "What sort of 'witch fu'?"

Willow stayed with Faith. "I _do_ know what I'm doing! If I'd just had all the information..."

Anya had ventured a little of the way back down the stairway. "Yes, but since you didn't have it, we could've actually succeeded in taking Buffy's soul _away_. And then Dawn would've had to slay..."

"Will all of you just shut up!"

Somewhere in the middle of everything, Willow had lost that thread of control keeping Buffy unconscious. They all turned to find the slayer in a ball on the cot, but now with her hands at her head, looking as though a truck had just run over her.

There was a collective shout of "Buffy!" and then a mass movement towards her side. Seeing the onslaught, the blonde shrank against the wall, hands out.

"Out! Everyone just get out!" They all pulled up short, Willow staggering a little as Dawn ran into the back of her.

"But Buffy...do you still...I mean, are you...?" The redhead tried her luck, her voice tired but hopeful.

Buffy sighed, staying pressed still against the wall. Softer this time. "Yes, it's me. But, please, leave."

Xander, Dawn, Anya, and Tara all slowly climbed the stairs. Willow and Faith tried to stand their ground.

"Please."

Faith opened her mouth, then shut it again into a hard, hurt line. Willow took at step forward, but her face crumpled as Buffy slowly shook her head. As the rejected two walked up the stairs, they each took a little comfort in the fact that the other wasn't allowed to stay either. And they carried that comfort with them, small as it was, into the mid-morning.

* * *

When Buffy emerged, the house was dim with the early evening and quiet. She could hear the breathing of sleep from upstairs where Willow, Tara, and Dawn had all collapsed from the strain of that morning. And she could feel the other slayer in the living room. Faith had pushed aside the pillows and sprawled on one end of the couch.

The blonde slayer stood, looking down at the sleeping girl, at the lack of care on her face, the openness of her expression. She wondered what she was dreaming of. This time, Buffy didn't know.

"Like what you see?"

Faith's voice startled her gaze away from where it had slid down to the still-fresh wound on the dark slayer's neck. Looking back up, Buffy saw that Faith's eyes were open and dark, watching her.

"No!" The first was just a little too fervent, so she went on. "No, I just was..." She didn't know how to finish it.

"No big. Just not used to someone sneaking up on me" A wry smile. "Prison makes you jumpy like that."

Buffy could feel Faith throwing prison in between them. A reminder of why she was there. But Buffy decided not to rise to it. Faith again cut off her thoughts, sitting up slightly on one elbow, her face closed and careful now that she was awake.

"So, B, to what do I owe the honor of this visit?"

Buffy's eyes slid down again to what she'd done, and her hand went out to it almost without her knowing. "I guess I stopped..."

"Red stopped ya." Faith felt the older girl's fingertips brush across her neck and fought to keep her eyes from closing.

"But are you...are you okay?"

"5 x 5." The blonde slayer stayed where she was and those fingertips stayed where they were. Faith wondered if she was even aware of them. She saw Buffy's gaze shift up to her lips, and she wondered whether she was aware of that either. Faith was aware of both. She strained to keep her voice light, flip. "Was there somethin' else you needed, B? 'Cause you were all 'get out' earlier and now, just when I try to catch a little sleep..."

Buffy snapped into the moment and jerked away her hand. If that's the way she wanted it... Faith rolled over again on her side, her eyes into the back of the couch, body rigid. And, for a moment, she thought the older girl would leave so she could breathe again.

But then she heard her voice, hoarse, still behind her. "I just wanted to say thanks." A pause. "I know you didn't have to come." Another pause. "Hell, I probably wouldn't have."

Faith snorted at that. "'Course you woulda. You're the good one, remember." They'd certainly never let Faith forget it.

"Not anymore."

At that, Faith jumped up, pressing into the other girl's space. Her face was tight, angry. "You think this makes you bad? You think bein' a vamp who couldn't even suck until somebody made her makes you bad?" In a flash, the anger turned mocking. "'Less you wanna be bad." She cocked her head at the other girl. "Maybe you wanna play that game 'cause it's more fun than the one they're playin' here."

She saw the blonde swallow hard, backing up. Faith followed her, still pushing, pitching her voice a little lower. "Maybe you figure Faith's just the one to play with." She saw the blonde's eyes fall on her lips again as her back hit the basement door. She'd thought as much. With just a little more...

"That why you kissed me in your dream?" Faith ran a finger along the waistband of Buffy's jeans, feeling the space between that band and the blonde's stomach as the other girl sucked in.

"Faith!" It was almost a low moan.

"Yeah, I'm always what you want me to be." And, with that, she pressed forward, capturing the other girl's willing mouth. In the back of her mind, Faith knew she was playing with fire. Or with a vampire. Or with her own emotions. But, feeling Buffy's groan as she slid her hand upward under the shirt, and her own groan answering as her fingers found the silky fabric and that promising shape, she didn't care.

Pinned against the door, Buffy fumbled, getting her own hands under Faith's shirt, skating over that scar she knew so well. She felt the younger slayer arch into her hands, felt the tantalizing heat of her. And if Buffy had been still alive, there would've been breath on Faith's neck as she kissed down the other girl's throat. But now it was just her lips, trembling against that skin, skirting the dangerous pulse point where she knew blood was throbbing.

Until Faith bent in to catch that mouth again, biting a little at Buffy's lower lip as she reached around to unhook, with one practiced hand, the bra so that she could have her hands on those breasts themselves, the smooth skin of them, the little nipples standing erect under her fingertips. As she bent in to take one in her mouth, Buffy let out a small cry and reached a hand back to the doorknob behind her.

* * *

Spike came in just after they turned to face that door, struggling to get it open with their hands still on each other. He saw the brunette slayer reach around, taking Buffy's breast in one hand, sliding the other down towards the front of Buffy's jeans, and then inside them as the blonde slayer leaned back into Faith. He saw Faith pull that hand slowly out again, Buffy moaning at the tease and at the kisses on the back of her neck. He saw Faith open that door to the dark stairs down.

And he left, throwing the packets of blood he'd brought across the room to hit the living room wall and slide down, heavily, to the floor.


	13. Chapter 13

A/N: Cheetos and reviews. Good things. I know I've said it before. Thanks again!

* * *

Upstairs, things were decidedly less steamy.

Willow and Tara slept in the same bed, but that was about all they were sharing at the moment. The blonde's back was turned firmly towards the redhead. In fact, she would have been in Buffy's room across the hall, but there was some confusion over whether the Chosen One would be using it again, given the large window and, hence, considerable sun exposure. In the end, Tara, in her reticence, chose not to take over that space yet.

But then that left her with this space, and this girlfriend.

She still hadn't gotten a straight answer on how Willow had knocked Buffy out in the first place. As she fell off to sleep, she wasn't sure she wanted to know.

But all that back-turned, communicate-the-distance stuff was lost on the redhead at the time. Willow slept the sleep of the dead, exhausted by the spells that had taken so much out of her the last few days, and the jarring queasiness of having stopped the curse that morning right in the middle.

Well, she slept that sleep until she bolted awake from it, anyway. The redhead gasped for breath as the nightmare of having actually taken Buffy's soul away gradually loosed its grip on her, and the Buffy-shaped vampire coming at Tara with fangs bared faded away into the early evening gloom. She turned to find Tara still asleep and scooted up behind her. Tentatively, she ran a hand up the back of the t-shirt Tara slept in. The blonde's skin was soft, familiar and she sighed at the missing of it. Willow rested her hand there for a moment, then slid it around, across Tara's ribs, to curl in tighter against her, reaching that hand up to cup a breast.

Tara murmured and turned over on her stomach. Willow just barely got her hand out in time before it was pinned. She flopped back on the bed, frustrated, looking up at the ceiling. Could she just start all this over? Pretty please?

Sighing, she got out of bed and went over to the window. She felt the slight pull of the moon as it rose.

Moon. Dark. Buffy could be up.

Now would be the time to catch her alone.

Peeking out into the hall, she could see Dawn's door still shut. With one last look back at her girlfriend, on the other side of the big bed, she quickly tiptoed down.

* * *

But, of course, she did not find Buffy alone.

Buffy and Faith had stumbled down to the bottom of the basement stairs, hands fixed on each other's bodies, backing over to the cot that Faith had placed Buffy so gently down on earlier.

They were not so gentle now. They fell back together, Buffy's knees buckling as she hit the edge of it, then down. Faith on top, almost unable to breathe in the splendor of the long-desired woman underneath her, who was biting her lip at Faith's touches, who was moving under her as if she needed Faith to be there. And she was looking right into Faith's eyes with her inscrutable green ones. She was saying Faith's name.

The dark slayer had to look away.

And instead took her amazed hands lower, feeling the other girl's hip bones, the hollow just inside them. She bent her head away from that gaze to take a nipple between her lips, rolling it around on her tongue. The blonde under her arched up into her mouth and Faith dragged her tongue down and around the curved base of that beautiful breast. Buffy was forced to close her eyes then, with a sigh. To feel the blood coursing through the other girl's body on top of her, to feel the fingers unzipping her jeans to reach inside, first through cotton and then not. To feel her body, outside of her, crying out.

And that was where Willow found them, and was dumbfounded for the second time in two days. From the shadow of the top of the stairs where a moment ago her head had been full of what she was going to say and how she was going to say it and then, when that was done, in the questions she would ask to find out everything about this soul and the inside of Buffy's head these days.

That latticework of thoughts and plans and reconciliations came apart in a second. And in its place, she couldn't help but watch the tangle of skin below. Faith as Xander must have seen her. Buffy as Willow wished, in an sharp pang, she'd come to her.

But she could only stand there, mouth open, until she heard the door behind her and saw Dawn come striding down, her mind set to find something out from her sister. Willow heard the swift intake of breath and clapped a hand over the younger Summers' mouth because she feared there was a shrill "Buffy!" in there somewhere, waiting to come out. With her eyes she said no and marched the other girl in front of her up the stairs and quietly out.

* * *

"Willow, you can_not_ keep me out of there!" She looked over at the closed basement door. "Gah! What is she doing?"

"Aren't you a little old for the birds and the bees?"

"That's not birds and bees! That's Faith! Is she insane...did she come back insane?"

"Dawn, Faith's a lot of things, but I don't think insane is one of them anymore."

"You _so_ know I didn't mean Faith there, even though I'm still reserving judgment on that one. Need I remind you about her near-throttling of you earlier today—and now you're all Faith-defender? But...Buffy!"

"She's an adult. She can choose who she's with." She tried to say it with the maturity of years.

But sometimes snide said it best. "Yeah, and I notice it's not us...not that I want to be with her in _that_ way because, ew, related, but you know what I mean."

Willow wanted to say no, to be the good affirming parent here. What came out instead was: "You noticed that, too?"

And when Dawn grabbed a crossbow to go out and find something to dust, Willow wasn't about to let her go alone.

* * *

"See you're preenin' around like hot shit."

Faith took a drag on her cigarette, looking around. Nobody but Spike. "You talkin' to me?"

"You think I can't smell her on you?"

"That's kinda creepy, you know." Faith struck a nonchalant pose against the edge of the cemetery gate. "Not sure B would want to think you're walkin' around, nose in the air for her." Another drag. "What is it with you vamps and B anyway?"

"You don't need me to tell you."

"Don't know what you're talking about."

"Right, love. Forgot. You're the "ride at a gallop" sort."

Faith snapped over at him, then looked out into the night, busying herself with her cigarette. "Damn straight."

He sneered over at her. "Yeah, Dawn told me all about your little body-switchin' trick, and I just kept wonderin' to myself why you'd do that. So much easier just to kill her if you really hated her." He gave her a big smile. "Then it hit me...you don't."

The brunette tossed the butt down, grinding it with her boot. "Speakin' of killin'...you know I don't have any problems dustin' your ass."

The blonde vampire kept pushing. "Then I wondered what you did in Buffy's body."

That got him a punch to the face. Spike just chuckled. "Now, now...I won't tell anybody, bit! Know you thought it was your only chance. Can't blame a woman for it."

"That wasn't what happened." Gritted out.

He ignored her. "Then imagine your surprise when you get a fuckin' chance at it. Nevermind that she's so depressed she coulda killed herself, or that she's the sort of thing you're supposed to slay, 'cause it's You! and Buffy! and the fuckin' choirs are singin'!"

She punched him again for being right. Still didn't phase him. He just rubbed his jaw, looking over at her like he knew her. "'Course you don't really believe it." Faith just glared back. "You know she's just using you to feel somethin', or you wouldn't be out here with me, and instead you'd be with her, your hands on that sweet—"

She decked him that time, standing over him like she was about to lash out with those shit-kicking boots. "C'mon, you bastard! Hit me back!" But he still just laughed at her. "Unless you can't." She tried a sneer.

"Nope. Just that they'll do it for me."

She hardly had time to turn to see the five vamps behind her before one of them (a smarter breed, evidently) swung at her with a bat, catching her square in the head, knocking her heavily to the ground.


	14. Chapter 14

A/N: I could sing a song about reviews. But I won't 'cause I kind of love y'all.

* * *

When Buffy awoke, the bed was still warm from Faith's body. She wondered if she was going to be this sensitive to temperature and blood all the time now. Or, for that matter, this sensitive to Faith not being there.

But, seriously, what had she expected?

Maybe that they'd made love, which was new for them—very new—and might have meant something more. Instead, to Faith it meant the same old thing. What was it she had said? Just part of wanting to be bad? She supposed it was another notch in Faith's bad-girl, studded leather belt.

Buffy wondered how many times she'd done that with someone else.

She gritted her teeth.

Sitting up on the edge of the cot, she felt the night in the air and the corresponding hunger it stirred in her. She had fought the temptation when Faith had moaned under her touch, whispered her name, closed her eyes, not realizing how near she was coming to Buffy.

And, so help her, the poignancy of restraint had made everything sweeter.

That's just sick.

Did Faith really whisper her name?

She went upstairs to get out of her head, finding Tara there, alone, in the kitchen.

"Buffy!" The blonde witch, too, had been lost in her thoughts, but turned to see the vampire, distracted and tense, come into the room. "How are you feeling? Did that spell...?"

"It hurt at the time, but it's okay now."

Tara gave a small smile at that and some of her own tension went out of her shoulders. "That's good. And you've still got a soul. I thought that Willow knew when she asked me to join her. I didn't know."

"How could you? Even I don't know why I'm still me in spite of...everything." She shrugged, walking over to the window. "At least you saw in time."

"Your soul is kind of hard to miss, Buffy." She saw the other girl pause at the window, then whirl away. "It's beautiful, you know. A hero's."

"And yet, strangely, I feel like anything but." Her eyes darted around, not meeting Tara's. She noticed how quiet the house seemed. "Where is everybody? Where's Willow?" Buffy saw Tara's smile fade. "Are the two of you okay? I know there was some issue before I left, something you sang about." As Buffy remembered, the lines in her brow deepened. "Some spell she did on you."

Tara sighed. "We haven't really talked about it." A pause. "She says she'll be more careful but... Oh, I don't know, Buffy. I'm sure she needed to do what she did when she was trying to find you, and I can't blame her for assuming you would be without a soul." Another sigh. "She's trying to help."

"Maybe we should tactfully introduce her to the wide world of greeting cards." Buffy tried a smile, but the look on Tara's face stopped her. "Sorry." She moved close, reaching out an arm that intended to rest on Tara's shoulder, all sympathetic. But it ended up hovering and then being jerked back.

"Buffy? What is—" She took a closer look at the other girl, at the direction of her gaze in the vicinity of Tara's neck. "Oh, I'm so sorry! I forgot...I found these earlier and I'm sure..." Tara turned quickly back to the countertop, reaching over to grab several packets of blood and hand them to the blonde slayer.

Buffy forced herself not to grab them. She would have blushed. As it was, she shoved them quickly in her jacket pocket. "Thanks." And made a faint gesture at the door. "I've got to go..." Grabbing a stake from the entryway table, she rushed off into the night.

* * *

"A baseball bat! Now that's forward-thinking, man!"

The vamps looked over at Spike, then down at the fallen slayer—breathing but still where she lay—then back at Spike.

"Who the hell are you?" They weren't sure whether they would need to take a swing at him, too.

"Oh, don't mind me. I was just reminiscin', you know." He whistled. "In the day, what I woulda given for that kind of initiative in my crew!" With a wave of his hand. "Well, carry on with it then."

But then he heard voices very near. One he recognized. "Oh, bugger." And Dawn and Willow came into view, with the crossbow he didn't want to be on the wrong end of. They caught sight of Spike in the dark just as he bull rushed two of the demons. The vamps scattered in front of him like startled chickens. Spike felt a crossbow bolt whiz past him and wing one of his opponents.

"Hey! Watch your aim!" In his distraction, Spike took a hit to the jaw from that innovative baseball bat and staggered off to one side.

Hearing a moan, he looked over to find Faith murmuring and shifting a little in the dirt. Willow looked over and saw the brunette slayer at the same time. She stared for a moment as Faith, moaning, slowly raised a hand to her head and turned over on her side, holding it. Then Willow rushed over, kneeling next to her. Only to be set upon by a nearby vampire that knocked her to one side and snarled, ready to climb on top and bite down. Willow yelped, her hand reflexively beginning the manipulations of a spell. But she was cut off by the dark slayer who leapt to her rescue with a "take on someone your own size, motherfucker!"

Faith sprang up and into the vamp's ribs, her momentum taking him over into the nearest tree. He tried to fight back, but he had, frankly, expected a lot less out of his prey and just wasn't ready for this. But how many people were ready, really, for Faith? She let loose on him with all the slayer fury she'd pent up for so long in prison. She let loose on something evil and, in a flash, he wouldn't have filled a Dixie cup.

She had a moment to look over and see Dawn taking on a vamp and, to Faith's surprise, doing fairly well on her own. Spike was moving to help. With a growl, Faith moved to intercept. But she was waylaid again by the bat-wielding bastard, though she was able to duck his blow this time.

"Okay, asshole, enough with the goddamned bat!" She reached out and grabbed for it, catching it on the backswing. Faith pulled it forward and brought the vampire with it, straight into her fist. He reeled back into another demon, pushing him into Dawn's crossbow, knocking it from the younger Summers' hands. Seeing her weaponless, a third vampire moved in, but was caught from behind by Spike, who didn't have a stake on him, but wailed away for what he was worth. He missed the fourth vampire who stepped in to grab Dawn by the hair. Willow screamed Dawn's name and tried to get to her side, gathering up the dropped crossbow as she went. Faith staked the one in front of her and moved to help, too.

But both of them were beaten by another, who leapt into the fray with a growl, her face carrying the mask of the demon inside of her. Willow, her crossbow already raised, couldn't stop the bolt in time. It flew from the mechanism and lodged itself square in Buffy's shoulder, quivering halfway out the other side. The blonde slayer screamed a hoarse scream that stopped everyone for a moment until she broke off one end of that arrow and jammed it in the chest of the vampire currently on Dawn, dusting him instantly.

Willow screamed, too, her hand flying to her mouth as she saw what she had done. Faith jumped in to catch the vampire moving towards the redhead as she stood, staring and calling out Buffy's name. He was lucky enough to twist Faith around, forcing her, not him, to take the hard landing against the side of the gravestone. She felt a rib crack with that one. But got her stake in front of her so that he fell against it, and was no more.

And then there were two.

Buffy saw Faith struggling to pick her self up and called out her name, trying to get there ahead of one of the two remaining vamps, who saw the same winded slayer and had grabbed up that bat again. He was not so stupid as to stay with the brunette, however, when he saw the blonde coming at him at a run, and turned to swing at her instead, which forced Buffy to bring herself up short, off-balance. He swung again before she could set her feet, hitting her in that bleeding shoulder wound. She staggered back into a monument with the pain of the blow on top of the wound and Spike, having dusted his vamp finally, moved in, grabbing the stake out of Buffy's hand, and dusted the vampire before he could swing again.

Buffy was still reeling when Spike reached out a hand to catch the side of her waist and steady her. He looked at her, amazed, finding the visage so similar to his now looking back at him. He kept his hand on her waist as she gritted her teeth and reached up to touch the edge of the hole in her shoulder. Tearing off a strip from the bottom of his shirt, he wrapped it around the blonde slayer's injury.

From several feet away, Faith rose, clutching her side, eyes dimming now that there was no one left to fight. Eyes lighting on Spike's ministrations, his hand on Buffy's waist. She caught Buffy's questioning gaze as the Chosen One swept her eyes across the space between them and over Faith, her face reverting in the calm after the storm. They held each other's eyes until the blonde slayer was forced to shut them when Spike pulled the bandage tight.

Faith shifted her eyes, then, over to Buffy's vampire nursemaid, her lip curling a little. He still had his hand on her waist, and Buffy was letting him keep it there. Faith said nothing, accepting Willow's hand as the redhead, too, looked back over her shoulder at Buffy. But the blonde slayer was crowded now from their view as Dawn and Spike hovered near, seeing to her.


	15. Chapter 15

A/N: Another one, just for y'all!

* * *

It wasn't even 10 o'clock when they all stumbled home.

"_Some_ of us didn't spend all day sleeping like some others of us did, so I don't really think it's fair for that some of us to have to come over and spend our evenings performing first aid for the other some of us." Anya sat dejectedly on the couch while Xander and Tara pulled out bandages and distributed ice packs.

"Which some of us was that again?" Xander absently answered.

"The first some of us, the us that was in the magic shop all day even though that us had been up all night the previous night with someone's nearly soul-stripping spell."

"Hey! Maybe that us—oh, whatever!—_you_ didn't _have_ to come to help." Willow muttered as she hovered in the way of the bustle in the kitchen. "Not that you helping and you not helping looks very different."

The former vengeance demon didn't acknowledge the indictment in Willow's comment. Or point out the redhead's own lack of usefulness, for that matter. Which was only because Anya wasn't paying attention to it. "Of course I had to come. Xander told me I did because these days we're just letting anyone patrol, no matter how non-super their powers, or how many people they've killed, or how much they look exactly like what they're trying to kill."

"I didn't say it that way!" Xander glanced up from the first aid kit long enough to cast a plea for understanding around the room.

Faith let the not-so-veiled reference to her slide, still indulging her glower on the couch on the other side of the living room. She watched Spike peel his makeshift bandage back from Buffy's blood-soaked shoulder. The blonde vampire (the short, femininely-endowed one with whom she had recently had sex) gave a low growl of pain as a little of her skin stuck to the cloth. Faith sucked in a breath. And then wanted to barf as Spike reached up to smooth the slayer's hair out of her face.

Dawn, however, was not about to be slighted by Anya of all people. "At least I've been helping around here with the slaying, which is more than I can say for that _some of us_!" Seeing Anya's confused look. "Yeah, you! And I would've done more tonight, if it hadn't been..."

"If it hadn't been for the fact that you kept aiming at the vampires on your side instead." At Spike's words, Buffy looked up at him, startled to realize he was talking about her, too.

Dawn was full of teenage indignation. "I didn't aim! There was no aiming! You were in the way!" A breath. "And the second one was totally Willow."

"Hey, I wasn't aiming either! I didn't _mean_ to hit Buffy!" Willow yelled, a little too loudly. Tara looked up briefly, registering for the first time how the blood she was wiping away had been spilled.

Xander looked up at his old friend. "Will, nobody said..."

Buffy reached a hand out to the distraught redhead, not quite catching her arm. "You can't blame yourself. It's better to shoot at things like me." A frown on Spike's face. Buffy paused, wondering whether her face had been vamped when she'd charged in. It scared her that she didn't know. She reached up a unconscious hand to find smooth humanity now. "You couldn't tell..."

"And, anyway, it being an accident saves you from being in the Faith category."

Willow just stared at Anya, who was looked back encouragingly, as though she might venture a thumbs-up.

A little ways across the room, the younger slayer's gaze swiveled away from where it had caught the blonde slayer's hand against her face. That gaze darkened now. "Hey, I'm trying to fuckin' help here. But if you guys don't want me, then maybe I should just—" Her boots came down heavily on the floor, and she winced a little as she stood.

But Buffy cut her off, hopping off the kitchen table and brushing Spike aside to glare full strength at the former vengeance demon. She dove right to the heart of the matter.

"Look, Faith's not going to steal Xander away from you and she's not going to hurt him again because she's past that so just get. off. it." Faith looked like stealing Xander was the furthest thing from her mind. Buffy turned to the rest of the room. Dawn started to say something, and the blonde slayer quirked a challenging eyebrow at her, but she, and the rest of them, remained silent. Buffy turned and grabbed another ice pack from the countertop and took it over to Faith. Her question to the other girl was quiet. "Your ribs?" Her eyes asked more questions.

All of the questions got the same brief, familiar answer. "5 x 5."

Buffy had been hoping for more.

Willow, staring, saw her hoping for it and forgot that the blonde had reached out to her, too, a moment ago. Willow saw Buffy remembering now the feel of Faith next to her, there for her. Looking away, she caught Tara' s eyes, finding her girlfriend's face serious, unreadable, watching her in return. She turned and went upstairs.

Watching her go, Buffy thought that she had hoped for more from Willow, too. Some discussion they kept not getting to have.

Sighing, she knew she had to be careful. She was starting to get accustomed to less. Without another word, she stalked out into the backyard.

* * *

There was an awkward moment and then Dawn set out after her. Before she got out the door she stopped Spike, who was heading in the same direction.

"Give us a minute, will you." It wasn't a question. "Sister stuff."

He sniffed a little at that, but wasn't about to get in the way of a Summers woman. He looked around dubiously at the company he was left with, and went out the front door for a smoke. The younger Summers pushed out the back door and found Buffy sitting in the grass, her knees up in front of her, looking into the night.

No preamble, accusing. "I saw you with Faith, you know."

Her sister looked over at her, startled and a little chagrinned. Whatever she'd expected, that wasn't it.

"I'm sorry—"

Dawn jumped in. "Well, you should be! You know how she is around you, and I don't care if she's been in prison! How could you just forget everything she's done to you and be all la-la-la about it, with your freakin' tongue down her throat! That's just—"

The older Summers sighed. "I meant that I was sorry you had to see that. The rest of it is none of your business."

"Just think what Mom would've said, after what Faith put her through!"

Buffy grimaced at that one. "Please don't bring Mom into this, Dawnie."

"Why not? Somebody's got to remind you of all these things you're conveniently forgetting. It's like you're a different person. Since...oh." It hit Dawn, then, what the look on Buffy's face meant. She was quiet for a second. And then, her voice small now: "Was she there?"

Buffy's eyes were closed, and Dawn thought she saw a tear find its way down. She kept talking to fill the silence. "Because we thought...Anya and Xander and Tara and I were talking and we thought maybe there were harps and angels and stuff and I thought maybe you might've..."

Buffy nodded and, reaching out, pulled her sister into an embrace that was familiar, even though Dawn, pressed into the still cold of her sister, had to imagine how the older girl's heart was breaking.

* * *

"You tryin' to eliminate the competition?"

Faith had followed Spike out onto the front porch, ostensibly going for a smoke herself, but she was in the vampire's face before he had a chance to move. Her voice carried an current of steel warning under its lighthearted words. She didn't get an answer. So then she got angry.

"You think I don't fuckin' know what you did? You think you have me fooled like you have her fooled?" The words were practically a hiss.

He wasn't looking over at her, but she could see the spot of ember as he pulled at his cigarette. "Don't think I'm fooling anyone. I'm not pretending to be all reformed and whatnot."

"I got no problems getting' reformed on your ass." She wished she had a stake. "You know if she knew..."

"But you won't tell her 'cause you know, if you did, she just might not believe you." He turned, lazily, to look her up and down. "And you may be pretty," She snorted at the understatement. "but it doesn't matter to me who she gets her rocks off with in the meantime. In the end she'll come back to what's dark..." His eyes flicked down to the almost healed bite Buffy had left on the other slayer's neck. "She'll come back to what knows her."

Didn't stop Faith from punching that smug look off his face. And as he reached up to his nose, she grabbed the front of his shirt and pulled him close. "Don't you fuckin' touch her."

* * *

Upstairs, while all these little dramas had been playing out, Willow sat, alone in the company of her mistakes. They seemed to be piling up these days. Buffy's scream as the arrow pierced her skin. Tara's mouth a thin, white line.

So she turned where she'd turned before, pulling the baggie of Lethe's bramble out, taking a few sprigs and placing them into a dish with the scorch marks of other spells.

"For Buffy and Tara, this I char."

The match struck. The fire set on the little flowers.

"Let Lethe's Bramble do its chore. Purge their minds of memories grim, of pains from recent slights and sins."

The sing-song soothing, reassuring. From a small pouch, the clear crystal. She held it in the flames.

"When the fire goes out, when the crystal turns black, the spell will be cast." She placed the crystal in a pouch inside her pocket.

"Tabula rasa, tabula rasa, tabula rasa."

And with the fire already burning low, its fuel nearly expended, Willow left the baggie and the fading tendrils of smoke, and left to go erase any sign of the tears that had welled up in her eyes earlier. Not realizing, of course, that a single spark was all it took to send the whole bunch up in flames, and then smoke, and then a spell to cover them all.

* * *

So that Xander and Anya were left to collapse into each other on the couch. And Tara alone in the kitchen with the bandages she hadn't had a chance yet to put away. And Dawn and Buffy together back into the soft grass. And Faith and Spike in a heap on the porch, the blood from Spike's nose still running. And Willow in front of the mirror on the cold tile floor.


	16. Chapter 16

A/N: Had a bit of time off from work, so my vacation is now your early treat! Thanks again for reading!

* * *

It was midnight when the blonde began to stir. There was grass in her hair. The world looked like it was a sea of black sky. She gave a little half-shriek at a tickle on her arm, flinging off into the night a few brave ants who had ventured forth on that undiscovered country. At that shriek, she felt a sudden coldness at her side. Looking over, she realized she was lying on the ground. A girl was huddled a few feet away.

"Who...who are you?"

Hands outstretched in the universal symbol of the unarmed. "It's okay."

"Please don't hurt me."

A lump formed in the blonde's throat at that tremulous voice. "I'm not going to hurt you." In her head, she interrogated herself: _I'm not, am I? Am I a person who hurts people? Do I look like that?_ She kept her face calm, tender. The plea for the bond of common ground. "I don't know what's going on either."

"Yeah?" A little hopeful. "Who are you?"

"I'm...um..."

A shout from the house they had hardly registered behind them: "Who are you freaks!?"

The younger girl reflexively pulled closer to the blonde. Better the evil you know...

"Oh look! There's people in there!" The blonde put an arm around the other girl, smoothing some of the grass out of her hair. "And we're in their yard, so maybe they know us!" Tugging at her hand, the older girl pulled the younger to her feet and reluctantly towards the back door. They came in just in time to hear another blonde on the couch yelling.

"What do you mean 'freak'? I'm your wife!"

"My what? No way!" The brown-haired young man leaned back down towards the couch he'd just jumped off of. The woman there thrust a be-ringed hand up into his face. He turned back to look at the other blonde who was standing, confused, near the kitchen. "Hey, I've got a hot wife!"

The blonde on the couch preened a little at the compliment. The girl near the kitchen tried to give him a smile of agreement, but was interrupted as she heard the two other girls coming in through the back door.

"Do you guys know us?" Blank faces all around. The young man suddenly reached into his back pocket and hauled out a wallet, fumbling quickly through it.

"Alexander Harris." He showed the license around. "Hey, I exist!"

His wife dove for her purse, and pulled out a license, triumphant. "I am Anya!" She looked down at her picture. "What an exotic name! I must be from somewhere far away. Maybe you came there on business and we..." She paused, looking over at her husband. "Alex, just how do you support us?" He looked down at his license as though he would find his occupation listed there.

"I think I'm Tara." A U.C. Sunnydale student ID to prove it.

The two girls next to the back door stood purse-less and license-less. But, as the blonde looked over, she saw the other girl's lip threatening to quiver and then saw the necklace.

"Ooh! I think you're Dawn."

A glance down, a smile of relief. "Or Umad." A pause. "But you've got to have a name, too."

"I...I don't know what it is. Maybe I'll just name myself. I'll be...Joan." Joan looked pleased with herself.

"Joan?" Dawn, incredulous.

"What's wrong with Joan?" Joan, sticking her chin out a little.

"It's just so, I don't know...martyr much?"

Joan huffed. "Well, at least I don't have to wear my name on a necklace like I'm going to forget it."

"Whatever, Joan."

"Whatever, Umad."

Glares. Then surprise. Dawn grabbed the blonde. "Oh my god, do you think we're..."

"Sisters!" Finished Joan, clasping the other girl to her.

Anya smacked Alex for the expression on his face as he watched the two beautiful girls hug. "They're probably my cousins, you know."

"But I wasn't—" He didn't get to finish the sentence.

"Vampires!" A guy came flying through the front door, pushing a brown-haired girl inside in front of him. They slammed the door behind them and leaned against it.

Anya let out a little yelp at the sudden intrusion. "Who are you people and why are you bursting into our house?"

"Vampire? What do you mean vampires? It doesn't feel like Halloween..." Joan stared wide-eyed at the figures who'd just come storming in. And then, seeing distorted, growling faces peering in through the front windows, she grabbed a baseball bat that was propped up against the wall. Tara and Dawn stayed behind her.

"Outside! Four of 'em." The blonde man holding back the door managed to get out. He saw the brunette trying to look through the peep hole. "Get back, you silly bint!" A pause. "Hang on...bint? I'm bloody English!" He looked over at the girl now giving him a death glare. "Hey, you musta been drawn in by my accent."

The brunette had pulled an umbrella out of the rack near the corner and looked unsure whether she wanted to use it on whatever was outside or on him. "Or I was drunk."

From outside, they heard voices, then a shout. "Send out Spike!"

"They want spikes? Why would they want—"

"What's going on? Are we under attack? Whoah!" A redhead bounded down the stairs, stopping short when she saw the crowd already downstairs.

A shy "Yes. Vampires." from Tara got an equally shy "Really?" from the redhead.

"Seriously! Is this a clown house? Where does everyone keep coming from?" Anya ran over to a door and pulled it open as though she expected a whole troop of Girl Scouts to be in there. Instead, she found a closet. With weapons. "Alex, honey, why do we have weapons in the hall closet?"

"Ooh, spikes!" Alex reached in past his wife and picked up a bundle of wooden spikes from the closet floor. He ran over to the front door, flung it open, and threw the spikes out into the bewildered group at the door. "Take your freakin' spikes and leave us alone!"

"What he said!" The brunette dashed out and grabbed one of the wooden spikes. Lunging, she drove it straight towards the nearest target, catching him right in the chest. He promptly turned into a cloud of dust. She looked down at the weapon in her hand, then back into the room full of amazed stares.

"Hey, did anybody see what I just did? I'm like a super—"

"Slayer!" The other vampires on the porch, growling, suddenly leapt after her, looking as if they would storm the house.

"Aaagh!" A scream went up from everyone in the room, including the brunette, who stumbled. Joan ran forward and pulled her back inside the entry hall and raised her bat at the coming horde. The redhead leapt out of the stairway and into the living room, finding herself next to Tara, whispering "do you know what's going on?" A quick shake of _no_. Anya held up her fists to defend her domain. But the onslaught stopped right at the door, held back by some invisible barrier at the threshold.

"Yay! We didn't die!" Dawn perked up.

"Did they say 'slay her'? Like they were going to slay someone? A female someone?" Joan straightened up. "Who do those jerks think they are?"

"Yeah, well, you won't slay me!" The brunette shouted out at them from just inside the doorway and stuck her tongue out at the still-growling group.

"Spike, you can't hide in there forever!" The vampire group gave their parting shot and faded back off the porch. "The boss'll be back...with friends!"

The brunette slammed the door on them and then looked back at the room. "As long as we don't invite them in, I think we'll be okay." She pointed at Alex and Anya. "Maybe if you guys want to get something to barricade this, in case they come back."

"Who appointed you—" Alex started, only to be smacked on the back of his head by Anya groused.

"She killed one and you didn't, so get moving boy-wonder."

The redhead looked over at the blonde man. "They were pointing at you. Are you Spike?"

The brunette's eyes got wide. "No way! I canNOT be with a guy named Spike!"

Spike put his arm around her shoulders as she wriggled. "I dunno...it kinda makes me the rebellious, manly type, dontcha think? Probably just what you tough girls like."

She sniffed at him. "If you're into that sorta thing."

"Are you guys married, too?" Anya looked over hopefully.

"If they are, I'm going to guess it's not happily." Dawn pointed at Spike's nose, crusted with blood. Spike reached up, as if just remembering, after all the excitement, that the thing hurt like hell.

He turned to the brunette trying to get out of his embrace and let her go, backing up from her as he held his nose. "Hey, you're abusive!"

"I am not!"

"Oh, right, cause I woke up next to you with this bloody nose after you were all sweetness and light to me."

"Well, you probably deserved it!"

"Me!? What did I do?"

"I think my rib's cracked. You probably hit me." She pulled up the side of her shirt to reveal the bandages running tight around her middle.

"You hit her? That's just wrong!" Joan and her baseball bat stepped forward. The brunette cocked her head at the smaller girl and caught her eyes, holding them.

Spike gave Joan an indignant look. "A little sympathy for my wound here!" Then it turned to incredulous as he ran his gaze over the diminutive blonde before him, stepping in to place himself squarely between his girlfriend and this interloper. "This is none of your business...it's between me and..." A pause. He turned to look back at the girl behind him. "Hang on, what was your name again?"

Dawn snarked. "Oh yes, this is clearly a relationship for the ages."

Spike shot back. "It's just 'cause I've forgotten everything. I'm sure we've really got a thing."

"I don't remember." The brunette looked confused from one face to the other in the house. All blank.

Joan took a step towards her. "It's okay. I didn't know mine either. I had to make one up. You could do that."

"Um..." She thought on it for a minute, then her face lit up. "I've got it...Hope!"

"That's nice." A smile from Joan.

"I can't be shaggin' an emotion!"

Hope glared at him. "You're not going to be shagging anyone after what you did to me."

He took a step towards her. Joan stepped in between. "What? You wanna be the other woman." He looked her up and down. "That's fine by me."

He hardly saw the punch coming. They all stared, openmouthed, as Spike flew back a few feet and landed on his ass. His yelp was a little girly and the blood had started to flow freely again from his nose. "Who the fuck _are_ you?"

"I'm Joan." Joan looked down, amazed at her fists. "And I don't think you want to mess with me." She pulled herself up a little straighter.

"Okay, Ms. Of Arc, I think you need to just back up there—"

But he was interrupted by the redhead. "Wait, you're not Joan. I think you're Buffy."

Everyone turned to look at the redhead, incredulous. Buffy: "How do you—"

"Buffy? Oh, great! Now I'm bein' menaced by the country club set!" Spike appealed to the fellow male, but Alex was still staring at the redhead, who was pointing upstairs.

"When I woke up, I saw tons of photos. With you, and you, and, well, all of you, really, except him." She pointed to everyone but Spike. Then she came back to Buffy. "And I think I found your bedroom."

In a thunderous herd, everyone tromped up the stairs to find pictures of themselves.


	17. Chapter 17

A/N: What can I say...here's another! Perhaps I'm buttering y'all up in preparation for a short absence coming soon. In the meantime, I'd love to hear what you think!

* * *

"There I am!" Everyone was huddled around the photos in one of the bedrooms. Buffy's bedroom according to the redhead. Dozens of photos of smiling young men and women, happy-go-lucky reflections of the faces in the room. Alex pointed proudly to himself, Buffy on one arm and the redhead on the other. "I'm a ladies man!"

Spike reached across him to grab it. "Sorry, mate, but those look like friendly arms around your shoulders, not lusty ones."

"Look, Joan! I think you did figure skating once." Tara pointed at several medals on a shelf.

Joan gave a squeal and rushed over. Dawn corrected: "It _is_ supposed to be Buffy, you know. It's written in the front of her diary right here."

"Hey!" Joan stopped to swipe her private journal out of her younger sister's hands. "Gimme that, you snoop!" But one look in the front of the slim volume confirmed it: Buffy. "You know, I think I'll stick with Joan." Her forehead creased a little as she asked the room: "I don't look like a Buffy, do I?"

Spike looked the blonde up and down. "Well, you are kind of the cheerleader type..."

Hope appeared at the blonde's elbow, grinning. "Go with Joan. I can't say Buffy without giggling."

Joan gave her a mock-serious nod. "Right you are! We can't have giggling when Joan kicks ass." Then giggled at herself.

"You seem really happy." Hope's gesture swept in all the Joan smiles captured in film.

"You, too." Joan held out a picture of the two of them, looking like they were at a club. Hope's face had a big grin on it, as if she were telling the best story. Alex was laughing, while Joan was watching Hope's face, with a confused half-smile. "We knew each other." A pause. "We went dancing."

Hope turned at that to find Joan looking at her with a repressed hunger that made her shiver. Swallowing hard, she kept the picture in her hands, looking down at it instead of the ravishing blonde.

On the bed, Dawn had opened up a yearbook. As she flipped through the pages, she gave a little yelp. Joan tore her eyes away from Hope and jumped on the bed next to Dawn, leaning in to see. Her sister thrust the book out in front of the redhead.

"You're Willow! Like the tree." At her words, Tara and Willow rushed over and found Willow smiling back at them, sweetly from the pages of the Sunnydale High annual.

"It is me! I'm Willow. Willow Rosenberg. I'm Jewish Willow."

Tara stuck out her hand. "Nice to make your acquaintance, Jewish Willow." They smiled at each other, holding that smile as their eyes tried to search out the familiarity they felt. Shyly Willow tugged a little at Tara's hand, unwilling to let it go.

"When I was up here, you know, earlier, when I woke up and didn't know where I was. Well, I went into this other room down the hall and there were these pictures of us looking really happy and I think...well, just come see." She pulled Tara out into the hallway and down towards another bedroom.

Anya, having found all the pictures there were of her in the room, sat down on the edge of the bed next to Joan. "This is all well and good, now that we all have names, but has anyone wondered why none of us can remember anything?" Joan looked over at her as she spoke, her eyes running down the other blonde's throat, watching the pulse beating there under that lovely skin. Astonished at herself, she snapped them back up.

"Huh?"

Alex sat down next to his wife, oblivious of the discomfited blonde on the other side. "And how did we all get it at once?" Looking thoughtful. "Is amnesia catching, 'cause maybe we all caught it together, like an epidemic."

"An epidemic of amnesia?" Dawn was skeptical.

"What? We all live here together like some sort of big commune. It could happen. Or maybe we drank some sort of communist forgetful Kool-Aid."

"Communes aren't necessarily full of communists, you idiot." Spike was sitting in a corner, miffed to find there weren't any pictures of him and Hope, or him and anybody for that matter. Not even one.

"I'm just say—"

But he was cut off as Willow and Tara bounded back into the room holding hands. "Hey guys, I think Tara and I are together! We have a bedroom down there and everything!"

Anya sat up. "It's a gay commune! Why didn't anyone tell me it was a gay commune...we're married heterosexuals! We'll be outcasts!" She grabbed at the bemused young man next to her like a liferaft.

Willow pointed to Alex's hand. "Well, maybe you're not married to him. He doesn't have a ring." She gave a little wicked smile, wagging an eyebrow at the blonde. "Maybe you're engaged to someone else here."

"Oh, you're right! And all this time I've been thinking..." Anya jumped off the bed, away from Alex, and promptly hooked her arm through Hope's. "I'm going to be gay with her."

Hope: "Me!? Why me?"

Joan, stepping close: "Yeah, why her?"

Dawn from the background: "Not to be technical, but I don't think you have to be gay _with _somebody."

"When you've got a rock like this you do!" Anya held out her ring again for everyone to see. "And I'm hooking my train to the girl who's already shown she can defend the house."

Hope, alarmed, tried to unhook her arm. She was grasping for straws here. "Why not Joan? She's pretty freakin' strong, too."

"Yeah, take G.I. Joan...Hope's _my_ girl!" Spike was spurred into action.

"Hey!" Joan stuck out her lower lip a little, indignant. "I can't believe both of you guys are trying to pawn me off on her!" Hope mouthed an "I'm sorry!" as she motioned with her head for Joan to come pry the other blonde off of her before somebody got hurt.

But Anya wasn't letting go that easily. "Spike, you're gay, remember? You don't have dibs on her anymore."

"I'm what? I thought this was a girl thing!"

Alex and Spike exchanged looks. Alex looked back at Anya. "Um, honey, can we talk about this...?"

Hope took advantage of Anya's distraction. "No offense, chick, but I'm just not that into you." Hope finally pulled away with a jerk, tumbling into Joan, who put her arms around her to keep her from falling.

Dawn tapped on her sister's shoulder. "Joan, do you think I'm gay, too?"

"You're probably here 'cause you're my sister, but you can be gay if you want. I'm supportive." She tried to beam support over her shoulder with the flash of a smile, unwilling to give up the hold she had on the now-firmly-upright-and-not-at-all-in-danger-of-falling Hope. With a start, Joan knew what _she_ wanted. She felt a flutter in the bottom of her stomach and a desire to kiss Hope's neck, only inches away from her mouth. She bit at her bottom lip.

Spike was blustering at Alex, who was looking over at him, his eyebrows climbing around his hairline. "Don't give me that look, Alex! Hope found me ruggedly hand—" He trailed off as he tried to find a mirror and find himself in it. He couldn't. "Hey! Is this thing working?" He knocked on the face of it.

Alex frowned. "It's a mirror, of course it...Holy jeebus, where's Spike?" Then the light dawned on him. "He doesn't have a reflection! He's a vampire!" He leapt about ten feet away into the hall in a single, fluid motion.

"Aaigh!" There was a general scream from everyone else as they stampeded into the hallway after Alex. Hope grabbed a wooden spike on her way out and turned to face her ex-boyfriend from just outside the doorway.

"I _knew_ there was a reason I didn't like you!"

"Uninvite, uninvite!"

Tara placed her hand on Anya's arm. "I don't think it works like that, sweety."

Anya pouted. "Well, it _ought_ to!"

Spike was almost speechless, still standing in the middle of the room, until he saw Hope with her arm raised.

"Now wait just a minute there, sweetheart! Think of all the good times—"

"We all have fuckin' amnesia, dumbass! I don't remember any good times!"

"Oh, right then...well, hey, you wouldn't have been all cuddled next to me on the porch if I was that bad."

"You were cuddled next to him?" Joan from right behind Hope's left shoulder.

Hope threw back. "I wasn't in control of that, I swear!"

Spike kept going. "Oh, and I got in without an invitation! I must've visited the commune before!" He saw Hope's hand waivering a little. "Maybe I'm your friendly, do-gooding vampire." One last shot. "And I haven't bitten anyone here..see!"

Dawn rolled her eyes. "That's about the lamest—"

The sound of breaking glass downstairs interrupted her mid-sentence and prompted another scream from the group. Everyone looked around wide-eyed, as though they would all run in ten different directions.

"Vampires!"

"They can't get in!"

"Something else not-good then!"

Hope reached into Joan's room and grabbed Spike by the collar, holding her weapon to his chest. "Okay, loser, downstairs with your do-gooding self." She pushed him ahead of her and looked back to the blonde who had been next to her, and who now had green eyes fixed on her. "Joan, are you with me?"

A smile as those green eyes lit up. "Wouldn't miss it!"

Hope grinned in return and looked over to the rest of the huddled group. "We'll try to get rid of them. Stay up here as long as you can. If you have to, go out the tree outside Joan's window." And with that she, Joan, and the blonde vampire went charging down the stairs.


	18. Chapter 18

A/N: I swear I don't know what's gotten into me! Maybe I'll get out another before I leave! Meanwhile, yaiyah once said it was "longer chapters for the win," so...she shoots, she...

* * *

Joan had wisely grabbed her bat. They found their first demon—an ugly one with a thick hairy hide and massive hands—at the bottom of the stairs. Your standard demon heavy. He roared out Spike's name as soon as that blonde vampire came into view. And something about kittens. Spike half-turned to go back up the stairs, only to find Hope and Joan with their arms crossed. So, with a shrug, his face transformed into a fearsome mask of ridges and teeth.

"Least I get to hit somethin'." To the demon below. "Hello, love!" And then he was down there in the middle of it.

Joan looked over at Hope. "So, are we saving him?"

"We'll play it by ear." And with an accuracy that made her grin, Hope threw her wooden spike to land solidly in the shoulder of another demon who'd come running. Wasn't as satisfying as dusting a vamp, but you do what you can with what you've got. Of course, then she had no weapon left. So Joan took the lead, leaping off the stairs to the entryway, behind the second demon.

For a brief moment as she stuck the landing, Joan looked back over her shoulder in amazement. She hadn't thought before she did it, but that had to be fifteen feet, plus some height to get over the railing. Hope, impressed, was mouthing "8.5."

She matched Hope's smile. "What are you, the French judge? That was at least a—" But seeing the other girl's face turn quickly to alarm, Joan knew there was no more time for tackling biased judging, and she swung around blindly at whatever was lurking there. She connected with solid demony flesh, and sent it reeling back with a few broken ribs, or broken whatever it was that demons had guarding their innards.

That bought her enough time to get to the closet o' weapons. Fishing through it she found several knives that looked handy. She tucked one in her boot and grabbed the other, a wicked looking one.

Rushing back over, she found Hope in hand-to-ginormous-hand combat with the demon she'd taken a shot at before. The brunette was a blur of punches and kicks, a beautiful fighting machine. But, good as she undoubtedly was, she wasn't getting far with her hands and feet alone, just holding her own. Joan stepped in to land a kick right in the monster's injured side as he stumbled back from one of Hope's blows. With a howl, he bent double.

"Your sword, milady." She passed the knife to the other girl, and saw her reach out for it. Then she saw a third demon coming fast. "Watch out!"

In her haste to meet the threat, Hope grabbed for the knife and whirled. Joan hadn't quite let it go, and the brunette's hand slid along the blade a little. A thin line of blood promised a gash in the skin between thumb and forefinger. Hope finally found the handle and turned to plunge the knife in the demon's gut. She watched it fall, wide-eyed, to the ground. Joan's eyes stayed with the blood blossoming on the other girl's hand.

There was another thump, and Spike's opponent dropped, too, with the point of an umbrella through its neck. The last demon, still clutching its side, decided it was not disposed to make a heroic last stand and bolted back through the front yard into the dark. Joan rushed over to Hope, taking that injured hand in hers, running a thumb across the droplets forming.

"Are you...?"

"S'cool, Joan." Cool fingers brushed her palm. She twirled the knife a little in her other hand. "Sharp motherfucker." Looking up, she met those green eyes and felt the excitement of the fight still coursing through her. Making her want to—

"Oh, will you two stop mooning over a papercut! Let's go kill that last one!" Spike's vamped face broke into a wide grin. "This do-gooding shit is fun!" And with that he was off. Hope looked after him, then back to the blonde in front of her. They stared at each other for a second. Then Hope swooped in for a quick kiss on those tempting lips, ducked her head a little, and ran into the night after Spike.

"Wha—?" Joan raised her fingers to her lips, feeling the warmth there still. Closing her eyes, she groaned softly. Then caught herself tasting the blood on her fingertips. Her eyes flew open. "Now, this is just getting ridiculous!"

Even still, she had to follow.

* * *

"You mean we're supposed to just wait up here?" Dawn sat down heavily on Joan's bed. "We could totally help them."

"Hiding is the way we help. It's part of the valuable role we play." Alex sat down next to her, patting her arm.

"You can't remember that."

"I feel it in my bones." He nodded sagely.

"My bones agree." Anya had taken up a position of safety under Buffy's dressing table.

"You know, there were some magic books in our room down the hall." Willow ventured, getting a little nod from Tara. "Maybe some of us could figure out a way to put up a barricade or something, just in case, you know..."

"Magic? Isn't that just fairytales?" Dawn raised an eyebrow.

"Given vampires and whatever's downstairs..." Alex shrugged.

Dawn had to nod at that. "Point taken."

"Well, now that Joan's taken my girl away, I haven't got much to lose." Anya climbed out from under the table and led the way resolutely down the hall.

"You think Joan and Hope are...?"

"Why not?" Anya threw back over her shoulder. "They're both strong."

Willow sputtered. "But that's not a reason to think..."

"On the contrary it makes perfect sense, from an evolutionary standpoint, that they would seek out the most powerful mate to be gay with."

Tara let out a cough. "Um...I think there's a problem with your theory there."

"And, again, I don't think you have to be gay with—"

But Dawn was cut off by Anya's little hand clap as she found the magic books. "Let's see what we have here. This doesn't look too hard. Here's even one for amnesia! Hey, I can cure us!"

By the door, Willow pulled a pouch with a crystal in it out of her pocket. "Ooh, look, Tara! I think magic is the way that I help. Look at my crystal...it looks magical!" She set it carefully on her desk.

Anya, meanwhile, was using hooked on phonics to sound out a spell. Suddenly, dozens of sea anemones appeared on the floor.

"Wrong spell, wrong spell!" Willow shouted, nearly stepping on one of the latest intruders.

"Gimme that!" Alex quickly scanned the page. "That says anemones, not amnesia!"

"Well, why would someone have a spell about anemones? That's stupid!"

"And now we've got a whole heap of stupid in here." Dawn had climbed up on Willow and Tara's bed.

"Look for the undoing spell!" Willow jumped across a few of the sea creatures and found herself looking over Alex's shoulder. But Anya grabbed the book back before either of them could get far.

"There! That should reverse it!" She sounded out a few words. The anemones promptly doubled in size.

"I think you're pronouncing something wrong!" Tara shouted to be heard over Alex's unmanly shriek.

"Well, if they don't finish the demons off downstairs, we can attack them with anemones." Anya was determined to be helpful.

"Get off the amnesia/anemones! What about a barrier?" Dawn called over from her high perch.

Willow made an "ix-nay on the ells-spay" motion, but she was too late. There was chanting and a large medieval gate suddenly appeared at the entrance to the room, poking through into the attic above. Anya smiled warmly at it. The floor creaked a little, then sounded as if it would crack.

"Give it here!" Alex grabbed the spell book from Anya and threw it across to Willow. The redhead flipped through it rapidly, then found what she wanted and began chanting, her eyes rolling back into her head. When she was done, the anemones and gate had disappeared, and Willow sank to her knees, gasping. Tara was down next to her, holding on to her.

"Willow! Are you—"

The redhead's eyes fluttered a little, but she nodded. "I'm fine, just tired." Then she cocked her head. "But, hey, listen!"

Everybody listened. They didn't hear anything. Which was the point.

"Do you think they've all gone?" At Alex's words, Dawn dashed down to the head of the stairs, then down the stairs themselves. She called back the "all clear!"

Everyone breathed a sigh of relief.

"Joan and Hope must've chased them away. Our heroes!" Anya clapped as she was steered from the room by Tara.

"Now that they're gone, I think Willow needs to rest, so if you guys don't mind..." And they didn't, realizing how tired they all were as the long night edged towards morning.

* * *

By the time Joan and Hope caught up with Spike, he was smack in the middle of a demony circle consisting of the runaway from the house, several vampires, and a guy with a shark head mumbling something about kittens. Improvising with convenient tree branches, the girls managed to stake two vampires before the crowd even realized they were there.

"I'm sure I never liked your friends either, Spike." Hope called out, kicking another vampire back a few yards.

"It's just my luck to have a wench that nags." Spike took a punch to the face and doled one out, catching the demon from the house right across the jaw.

"Don't call her a wench!" Joan grabbed the knife from her boot and planted it in the demon's stomach region. It howled and went down. Joan punched Spike in the ribs. He howled, too.

"Hey! Whose side are you on anyway?!"

"I'm with Hope."

"Well, could ya be with me in a more immediate sense over here then?" Joan whirled to find the brunette fending off two vampires who had liked the tree branch idea enough to grab two thick ones of their own. But before she could make it over there, the demon she had stabbed reached out to grab her ankle, pulling her down to the ground and rolling on top of her, still bleeding.

"Just a second!" Joan called out, jabbing her hand into that bleeding wound and taking advantage of the monster's pain to get her knees between her and it and propel it off. But Hope didn't have a second, and as she looked over at Joan, she was promptly slammed in the head with a tree branch.

The blonde saw it and saw Hope go down and screamed, her face transforming as she leapt up and over, growling, to grab the stick and jam one end in either vampire. In a swirl of dust, there was only the shark left, and he was too weird to worry about. Joan bent down to the ground, cradling the other girl's head in her lap.

"Please be oka— Oh, thank god!" Hope's eyes began to flutter and come open. Then open fully. And then the brunette lurched away from her onto the grass several feet away, backpedaling.

"Vampire! Joan! You're a vampire!"

"I was gonna tell you!"

"What? You couldn't make time?" Hope looked up at the sky for help with this one. "Why do I always fall for the fuckin' dead blondes?"

"Actually, that's undead." Spike sidled up next to Joan, who gave him a dirty look.

"I didn't know until I knew and then there was fighting..." Joan reached out a hand. Hope didn't take it, but didn't back away any further.

"What do you mean you didn't know? How could you not know?"

"Well, it's just not something I was looking for." And seeing the blonde, all pale and beautiful and human-looking now, Hope couldn't help but believe her. "If it matters, I think I'm good." Joan ventured a little closer, reaching out for the other girl.

"Copycat." Spike snided from the sidelines.

"Oh, shut up." Joan snapped, never taking her eyes off Hope.

Hope stared back. "You ain't gonna bite me? Don't you have to feed on people or something? Isn't that, like, the definition of evil?"

"I spotted a little neighborhood just over that way..."

"Shut up, Spike!" Both of them this time. Joan was right next to Hope now, touching cool fingertips to the other girl's cheek.

Joan's voice was a little halting this time. "I think, maybe, wherever my memory is these days...I think I was in love with you." She swallowed, remembering the other girl's kiss only a little while earlier. "I wouldn't hurt you. I think you know that."

Hope noticed that those green eyes were still gleaming from the fight. They probably matched hers at that. Excited still, her heart pounded. She'd been drawn to this girl all night and now...

"I don't mean to cut into this poetic scene, but it's gettin' on daylight."

Spike's words broke their trance, and Joan's head snapped up, sensing the dawn. Then back down to meet Hope's gaze, which was hovering in the vicinity of the blonde's lips. Joan's eyes widened a little at that, and she took the other girl's hand, tentatively. Hope let her, her eyes darkening.

"And I'm kinda hungry. You two go ahead, I'll just stop over and..."

Hope spared a glance for Spike. "Gonna have to say no to that. You're comin' with us. We'll find a butcher tomorrow. You won't starve till then." Then, knitting her brows, she looked over at the blonde next to her. "Will he?" Seeing Joan's face, Hope had the distinct impression blood wasn't what the other girl was hungry for at the moment. Her breath hitched a little at that. She could hardly rush home fast enough.


	19. Chapter 19

A/N: This is probably a record for me, but, because bobina asked so nicely, here's another before I go! It'll probably be a week and a half before I'm able to update again...my apologies in advance. But I'd especially love to hear your thoughts before I go, since I'll be thinking about where to take this next. As always, my undying gratitude for reading!

* * *

That rosy-fingered dawn was just creeping over the horizon as the trio shut the door behind them. Spike and Joan cringed from the windows where the drapes hung open still, even though the house was quiet and sleeping. Hope dashed into the living room and shut those curtains, but light was bound to creep through. The two vampires stayed in the dim entryway, the door at their backs.

"It's criminal not to give a man somethin' to eat."

Hope gave him the once over and didn't think he looked too thin or crazed...just sullen. She could deal with sullen.

"Yeah, well, I never said I was the domestic type." Her eyes shifted to Joan, but found the blonde just standing there, intense and quiet. Hope reached into the weapons closet, rummaged around a bit, and finally pulled out some handcuffs. She dangled them for a moment. "You know, as far as communes go, we've clearly got our issues."

"Hey! This isn't right!" Hope had clicked one cuff around Spike's wrist before he even saw her coming. He looked over to Joan for sympathy. "You see the kind of thing I have to put up with!" The blonde just quirked an eyebrow at him. His voice went up an octave as Hope pulled him along. "She doesn't even give me a safety word!" As he said the last bit, Hope flung open the door of another closet, clicked the other end of the handcuff around the clothes bar, and then stood there with her hand on her hip.

"See that window over there?" Spike's eyes followed her finger. "It'll be pouring sunlight on this door shortly. So unless you want us to dustbust you up this evening, stay put." He was about to open his mouth when she slammed the door on him. Turning, she found Joan looking at little panicked near the door, smelling dawn as it came. Hope ran from door to door, finally finding what she was looking for.

"Basement! Hurry!"

The blonde dashed across the floor, down the steps, into the cool dark. Hope shut out the light behind them as Joan found a switch near the laundry area and turned it on. The bulb cast shadows over the rest of the room as the blonde sat down heavily on a cot near one wall. It looked like it had been used recently.

"This is probably my real room." Joan pouted a little, peering into the gloom and cobwebs. "Kinda lacking in the personality department, though."

Hope pulled her eyes from the blonde and looked around. "Oh, I don't know, a coat of paint, a few throw pillows..." Both of them tried to imagine friendly, welcoming throw pillows and kept coming up with something a dog wouldn't want to sleep on. Joan wrinkled her nose. Hope sat down next to her. "You're right. It sucks." Joan leveled a glance at her. Hope put her hands up. "Okay, I honestly didn't intend the pun." She was grasping here. "Look, this probably isn't your place. Really you live in some decadently decrepit mansion in town and have, like, red satin sheets or something."

Joan brightened. "You think so?" She leaned into Hope a little, nudging her shoulder. The brunette felt a surge of electricity at the touch and had to stifle a gasp. But she wasn't quite successful. She caught Joan eyeing her, so she went out on a limb, thinking she could guess at what was behind those eyes.

"Hey, have you, you know, felt kinda funny with all this fightin'?"

"Funny ha-ha or funny peculiar?"

Hope paused a minute and then decided to go for it. "Funny like I was just wondering if you had some red lingerie to match your red sheets." It came out in more of a rush and less of the seductive purr she was hoping for.

Had Joan been breathing, she would've held her breath. She kept her eyes on the spot on the floor just in front of her feet. "Oh, that kind of funny." A pause, a little quieter this time. "I meant what I said earlier." Another pause, and she raised her eyes to meet Hope's dark ones. "But I'd understand if you wouldn't want to because, you know..." She waved a hand at her canines, safe and human for the moment.

The brunette closed the distance between them, kissing the tense muscle in Joan's jaw. "I trust you."

"Are you su—?" She didn't get anymore of the question out before Hope's kisses made their way around to her lips, tugging slightly at the lower one. There might have been an "oh yes!" whispered into her mouth, but that could have been her own whisper. She wound a hand around behind the other girl's neck and then up into that brunette mane as the kiss deepened and Joan leaned Hope back on the thin mattress to kiss some more. Breaking, reluctantly, away, Joan pushed herself up on her hands, looking down at the vision under her.

"You really are beautiful. You know that, right?"

She saw a blush redden Hope's cheeks, but the other girl held her gaze. "Ya ain't so bad to look at yourself." The brunette's hands found the edge of Joan's shirt, ran along the skin there between shirt and jeans. That smooth, ivory skin, cool to the touch, a thing of marble.

To Joan, that touch was hot. She could feel each fingertip, almost each whirl of fingerprint and the life in it, and both palms as they worked their way upward to brush against the bottom of her ribs. Then higher.

"This is okay?" Hope's eyebrow was a question over those dark eyes.

Joan found herself trembling as she closed her eyes and leaned into the temptation of that touch. "Okay? There's a whole parade in my head with the theme of 'Okay!' Banners and everything."

"A parade, hmmm?" Hope's voice trailed off into a hum as Joan bent over her, that curtain of blonde hair coming down around them, and the kisses met her mouth, her chin, her jawbone, down her neck. The brunette tugged upwards at the edge of the shirt, pulling it up and, with a little help, off. "Are there blonde twirlers at the front of this parade?"

More kisses, down the v-neck into the valley between Hope's breasts. Joan almost groaned at the heat of the blood under that skin and bit her own lip even as the other girl was biting her own. "I _know_ you're not thinking about blonde twirlers right now."

"Mmmm...you're right." Hope had to pause, removing the hindrance that her own shirt had become only to have Joan right there, teasing her tongue along the lacy edge of bra. She gasped, but managed: "More like blonde figure skaters."

Joan smiled into the other girl's skin, taking a bra strap in her teeth and pulling it down. "It sure as hell better not be Tonya Harding."

"Well, actually...ow!" She got a thump on her ear for that one. "Okay, okay, I confess...it's y—." She lost the last word as Joan's mouth found a nipple and ran a tongue around it in little circles, ever tighter. "Fuck!" It was a whisper as her hands fumbled with the clasp at the back of Joan's bra, worked it apart, and then tossed the offending garment into a far corner of the room. She cupped those perfect breasts and she pulled the other girl up to her mouth, depriving herself of the lips on her own breast to return the favor as the blonde arched into her.

"Well, that's go—oh god, that's good!"

And in a flash, Hope had her over on her back. Joan could only smile, amazed, at the beautiful creature above her, how lucky she was. And, then, at the fiery temptation of blood and skin—the one resisted, the other indulged—and at the hand sliding lower to unbutton its way in, and her own matching it down that other taute body, and the tentative finger finding her ready then adding, incredibly, another, and her own fingers finding the heat of Hope, until the rhythm of her cries and the brunette's little gasps filled her ears and she couldn't tell what she was feeling from what she was doing, and, over and over, her own voice saying "love" as they made it between them.

* * *

And so it went, with the morning passing into the afternoon. They could not tell the difference except in the shuddering climaxes passing into gentle caresses and whispers and kisses that stoked another fire because, even if they could remember nothing else, they remembered the passion between them, and they would make it new if they had to.

Early afternoon found the blonde curled into the other girl's side, their bodies both bare to the dim light of the room. Joan's fingers played over Hope's stomach, trying to see how long they could go before the other girl burst into giggles at the ticklish sensation.

They did not hear, then, the Englishman's "Hello?" at the front door or his feet tromping through the living room and kitchen or his surprise at the muffled voice from the closet and his "where is she?" met with a "basement, most likely, while they leave me here in..."

And then the basement door opening with a "Buffy, is that...gah!"

"Aaigh!" and "What the fuck?"

Joan leapt atop Hope in a patented Superman move, arms outstretched to cover as much of the other girl as possible.

"Buffy, what on earth...?" Giles looked pointedly at the wall to his left.

"Actually, she's going by Joan these days." Hope popped her head up and around.

"What do you mean, 'Joan'? Wait...Faith, is that you? What are you..."

"Hope." Hope was looking remarkably nonchalant about her nudity but smiling at Joan's attempts to be modest for her.

"Hope what? That my eyes promptly fall from their sockets?"

Joan, finally gaining some presence of mind, ripped the sheet up over the two of them. All the way over, so that just their faces were peeking out.

"I mean, I'm Hope."

"You're what...? Well, this is just..."

Hope looked over at Joan. "I think Alex was right. Maybe this amnesia shit is catching."

"Amnesia? You mean you've forgotten...oh, bloody hell! Where's Willow?" And with that he turned and stomped out the door. The two girls stared at each other. Joan refused to let go of her death grip on the covers until it was clear he wasn't coming back.

* * *

Giles, in the meantime, stomped straight up to Willow's room and threw open the door. "Willow, this is really...!" A pause, seeing two startled heads pop up from the bed. "Terribly sorry...I'm not looking..." His eyes found the charred baggie of Lethe's bramble, then, scanning, the crystal on Willow's desk. Grabbing it, he threw it down and crushed it under his heel.

Tara took it all in in a heartbeat. "Willow! How could you?" In a flash, she was out of bed and into the bathroom with the door shut firmly behind her. The redhead, just grabbed her head and turned to the side, away from Giles.

Near the door still, the Englishman sighed. "We need to talk, Willow. You and I, but also everyone. We'll need to talk about Buffy and...all of this. Maybe you can get everyone over to the Magic Box. Buffy can join us come evening."

He got no response. He pulled the door shut on the heavy silence in the room.

* * *

In the basement, Buffy slid to one side, off of Faith and into that cold tangle of sheets, grabbing her head with a groan as it all hit her at once. The dark slayer, wide-eyed, looked over at the Chosen One, at the face and body as familiar to her as the back of her mind, at that same face now creased in pain, eyes closed.

And she didn't want to wait for Buffy to remember enough to kick her out. In a rush of hurriedly-grabbed clothes, she was gone, so intent on the door that she didn't hear Buffy's strangled "Please, Faith, don't..." Didn't hear the knuckles slamming into brick with a growl that was pain, and anger, and frustration as eyes glowed yellow, and then squeezed shut in the dark.


	20. Chapter 20

A/N: It's amazing what one has time to do when one is stuck in the airport.

* * *

Willow ventured a knock on the basement door. There was no answer, but she had to be down there still, what with the abundance of sunlight still pouring in. Willow had saved Buffy for last, having gotten the rest of them off with various never-enough apologies and the expected grumbling and sullen stares to the Magic Box. Now...

"Saved" was the wrong word for it. "Dreaded." Now there was a word for you.

She pushed the door open a crack and squeezed through it. She found herself whispering Buffy's name. There was no reason to whisper. Something about sneaking in and dim rooms and potentially really upset friends just called for whispering, she guessed. She wished she could straighten up and talk normal, like this was normal and she hadn't just done what she had in fact just done.

She had only been trying to help.

It took her eyes a moment to adjust. Then she saw her. It looked almost like a post-coital scene from one of those arty movies, with dramatic lighting and sheets in a tangled mess, half-covering the sprawled, sated lovers. Except there was just the one person in bed. And she was curled tightly on her side, away from the door. Willow could see the naked ivory of her back, the soft sweep of blonde hair tumbling over the mattress and across her shoulder. The rest of her was in the shadows.

"Buffy?"

"Please, Will...not now..." The voice was hoarse, muffled by the wall she was talking to.

Willow started again. "I don't know how to say this, but I'm so sorry! I was trying to make it better and I didn't intend..."

With a start, the blonde whirled to face her, gripping the sheet barely over her breasts with one fisted hand. Willow could see the blood crusted on that fist. Wide-eyed, she could see the corresponding indentations in the wall, before she snapped back to Buffy's face as the blonde spoke. "You? You did this?" Buffy's voice was hurt, little, cracking. "Do you know what it was like to have to remember it all over again...at once?"

"Oh, Buffy, you weren't supposed to remember!" The redhead's voice was high-pitched, almost hysterical as she fumbled to explain. "I wanted it to be better, so that it wouldn't hurt so much, and you would—"

Her old friend raised a hand, wavering, in front of her, as if the words were a thing she could stop in the air. "Don't." Then, gritted. "Please don't."

A pause. Deflection by appeal to authority. "Giles asked me to see if you would come...we're all meeting at the Magic Box and he wanted to, I don't know, talk together, see if we could figure out..."

"Please just go." There was steel in it this time that shut Willow up. You couldn't talk to that. Glancing at that bloody fist again, she was almost afraid of what would happen if she tried. And so she turned and slowly went.

* * *

Faith walked alone, feeling the afternoon sun, the rush of U.C. Sunnydale co-eds free from class for the day, gathering in little chatting groups at the Espresso Pump. It was like a foreign country. Nothing like the women's facility, that was for sure. Not that there are. A lot of things like it, that is. Which probably goes with the whole confinement-as-punishment thing.

She ducked behind a group of kids as a police cruiser swept obliviously by. Wondering when that was gonna come back to bit her in the ass. Back when she'd thought she was going to be slayer numero uno in the City of Angels with Buffy out of commission somewhere that was else—or dead. Didn't work out that way. None of it. Which wasn't surprising, really.

Okay, Buffy was, technically, dead, so that part did happen. But, for a dead person, the blonde still managed to be more complicated than most people get to be living. And that left Faith... Well, she wasn't sure where it left her. Especially since she couldn't for the life of her remember how she'd ended up in Buffy's bed again, waking up like in the middle of a dream with the Chosen One on top of her. She put out a hand to steady herself against the wall. That pesky complication thing again. How had they gotten there? Who had started it?

She already knew who ended it. And it wasn't her. Buffy ended it with the grimace on her face, the regret of whatever impulse had brought them together.

Well, if that was the way she wanted to play it, Buffy could just have her twisted love affair with the blonde Billy Idol wannabe. She wasn't gonna get more than twisted from either one of them, so she'd just let Buffy get her twisted somewhere else.

The brunette shied away from a crowd as it passed her on the sidewalk. And as she looked to the side, she saw a familiar face across the street. Xander. And Anya. Going into a store called the Magic Box. She smirked a little. She'd wondered what Giles had done after they blew up the library at the high school.

Her face clouded a little at that. Blew up the one father figure she'd ever had. Albeit a fucked up one. But in a universe where father figures are few and far between, you take what you can get.

She saw Giles through the window, greeting the two walking through the door. She didn't envy the filling in he was going to get. Willow's girlfriend came along, with Buffy's sister, and disappeared inside. They were gathering. From across the street, she watched.

An alarm in the distance. Then the sirens of cops coming. She ducked back into the alley and nearly collided into a group of three losers who dashed into it at the same time. One of them was carrying a gas tank.

"Hey, watch it!" She called out, fists balled.

"Like this is your alley!" A brown-haired one sneered over at her as they hurried away, looking very much like they were up to something they were not supposed to be up to, involving a portable gas tank and dark clothing.

"Wait just one fuckin' minute! What're you...?" And she started to take off after them, only to pull up as she saw one jerk some sort of gun from his pocket and shoot wildly in her direction. The beam caught the tip of her finger as she flattened herself against the alley wall. She stared down amazed and promptly stalked across the street, flinging open the door of the Magic Box, thrusting the frozen tip of her finger in front of her for all to see.

"Anybody know what the hell some pack of dweebs is doin' with a fuckin' freeze ray?"

* * *

She had hardly moved when Spike found her. He had one metal cuff rolling around his wrist like a bracelet. The chain and other cuff were gone. She could sense him and called out a warning.

"I'm in the mood to slay something, so either get out or—"

"Big talk for somebody cowering in bed."

The blonde turned on him, then, sitting up and flinging a stake across the room. It missed the heart but sunk an inch or two into his chest, under his collarbone.

"Ow!!" He made a big show of wincing as he pulled it out and fingered the hole it left in his shirt. "That still hurts, you know."

"I told you...now is _not_ the time, Spike." She gritted out, eyes flashing yellow.

"Well, either your aim's gettin' bad or..." He leered down at her. "...you've got some kinky new sex games you'll be wanting to try out."

She looked down and realized she was still naked. "Oh, fuck you!" She hissed, grabbing her blouse off the floor, and pulling on her jeans, trying to ignore him as he watched, and figuring she didn't want to give him the extra time it would take her to locate her underwear.

He shrugged. "I woulda thought goin' commando was more the rogue slayer's style..." He saw her growl a little at the mention of the other girl. "...but you suit yourself." He picked up her coat off the floor and was about to pass it over to her when two blood packets fell out of the pocket. He raised an eyebrow at them. "Hoarding food, are we?" He looked over and could almost see her fighting to keep her face from transforming. "What, do you think you're too good for it? Think you won't be a vampire if you just don't drink?" He moved closer, picking up those packets. "Doesn't work that way, love." He tore off a corner of one of them with his teeth. She could smell it instantly and had to shut her eyes.

He just kept coming. She tried to back away, but there was only the cot and then the wall behind her.

"Nobody's down here to see." He held it out to her. She could feel it calling to her, bringing out the face of the thing inside her. She wished she had that stake back. She wanted to keep her mouth firmly closed, but her lips seemed to part of their own volition. And suddenly he had it to her mouth, one hand on the back of her neck as he poured it so sweetly in. Her eyes squeezed shut so that she wouldn't see.

She paused, forcing herself away, feeling that need inside her whetted only. She felt the blood inside her in a way she'd never felt the blood in her veins when she was alive—when it was naturally there and taken for granted. Her voice was a whisper. "It's disgusting how good it is."

"'Course it's good!" Spike crowed. "It's human. Stole it from the hospital."

"Oh god!" He could see her trying to spit it out, the gag reflex that brought her to her knees in front of him. He dropped to his, too, tearing off the corner of that other packet so that now the whole room smelled like blood. He watched her ball her hands into fists and smelled the blood on them, and the blood on the walls. The dents there. He could figure out who she'd been with. And who had left.

"She's gone, you know." The blonde's head snapped up at his words. "Yep. Saw her leavin' myself...and not with the Scoobs. Not surprising, though, really." Buffy dropped her head back down into her hands, recoiling a little as those hands touched the ridges on her brow. "Now I know what you just had wasn't as good as gettin' it yourself..." He paused to let her recall the feeling of her fangs slipping into Faith, of the other slayer's body bending into hers, surrendering. The smell of the open packet of blood made Buffy sway a little on her knees. He put out a hand on her waist, steadying her, holding her. The long deprivation, the thousand temptations since her last... "Can't say as there's much like biting in..." He could feel her wanting to agree. He could see her lips parted as she swept her hands back through her hair. "You know you're not like them anymore. You always were a thing apart, Slayer. But now you're not even like her. She can't be with you...every bone in her's telling her to kill you." The blonde let out a small cry that was halfway a groan. That last departure hit her again and she could feel the sharp pain in her knuckles and, before he knew it, she had grabbed the last packet from him and had it pressed to her lips, drinking deep, groaning at the taste of it.

He watched her, taking in the desparate abandon on her face. The teeth so like his own. He bent his face close. "Now, slayer blood puts that to shame." So close he could kiss. "But, then, you already know that. You know how sweet it would be to drink it all from—" But he never got to finish his sentence. With a roar, the blonde slayer slammed into him, driving him back into a pillar, flashing out with punches and kicks at such superhuman speed he could hardly dodge until a well-placed side kick caught him squarely and sent him smashing back, unconscious, into the opposite corner.

And so he did not see her running up the stairs, out the door, and into the night with cheeks flushed with blood and the taste of it still on her lips.


	21. Chapter 21

A/N: Thank you again for your reviews and patience! Here's another in return for more (reviews that is)...unless you'd have rather I waited the full week and a half...

* * *

"What do you mean, 'a freeze ray'?"

Faith looked over at Giles, cocking an eyebrow. "Not sure what's not self-explanatory about that one."

"Like in science fiction?"

"They do have them there, yes." Anya patted Xander's shoulder.

"Is that even possible?"

Faith gave him the frozen finger again, then flopped down, arms folded, in a chair at the table. Everyone stared at her. "What?"

"More details about your encounter might be helpful, Faith, if we're to learn what we're up against." The Englishman still looked rumpled and tired from his trip.

"Three nerds. Some sorta gas tank thing. Freeze ray." She monotoned. "And I know I didn't get the slayer manual and all that, but doesn't seem to be my department. If you guys wanna Nancy Drew it, that's your thing."

Willow looked taken aback. "But it's something strange and potentially very dangerous, so Buffy would—"

"It's certainly being used for nefarious purposes." Anya pointed to the television screen where she'd found a news report showing a museum, a missing diamond, and a frozen guard.

"And if I was intended to be the stopper of all things bad, I would be sportin' some fuckin' ugly polyester and a badge." She rocked back on two legs of the chair. "I'm a slayer. I kill things."

"Can't argue there." Dawn mumbled it, but it was loud enough for Faith to hear and loud enough to warrant an elbow from Tara. The front two legs of the dark slayer's chair banged down on the floor.

"Okay, first of all, fuck you, and, second, far as I can tell, these dudes were human, so if I start goin' after them and findin' out they're up to no good, then I'm gonna do what?"

Willow threw her hands up in the air. "Something to stop them!"

"Yeah, gee, now why didn't I think of telling them 'No, no!' in a stern—"

Giles cut in. "Perhaps we should wait to discuss this when Buffy is here, since she may be more comfortable in this kind of..." He trailed off, noticing the lights on outside and the dark of evening. He looked to Willow. "You _did_ tell her to meet us here?"

The redhead licked her lips nervously. "Well, I tried, but she wasn't really in the mood to listen after she found out..." She trailed off as Tara looked away.

"Found out what?" Faith knew she'd missed something.

Anya supplied it. "That Willow did a spell that backfired, making us all forget who we were and apparently engage in activities that resulted in significant damage to the house and a lingering smell of sea salt."

Buffy, naked, on top of her, flashed before the dark slayer's eyes. The result of forgetting who they were. She had to close her eyes. Opening them, she found Tara looking at her, giving her a little sad smile. The rest of the room had moved on.

"Putting that aside for the moment," Giles' glance at Willow said he would not be putting it aside for long. "We clearly need Buffy here to talk about these new developments."

"Not so sure she's gonna be in the mood to talk."

At Faith's words, Giles stopped, furrowing his brow. "But I was given to understand all of you had determined, after Willow's failed spell," The redhead grimaced. "that Buffy was in possession of her soul still."

"Oh, she is...I've seen it." Tara chimed in. "But she does seem to be...not quite herself. Kind of, um...edgy."

"Well, perhaps we should find her then so that—"

"I'll go!" Willow jumped out of the seat she'd been sitting in, interrupting Giles, who looked, dubiously, first at her, then at Faith, scowling and half out of her seat. Then over at Tara.

"I think perhaps Tara..."

So it was Tara who went to look for the Chosen One.

* * *

In Sunnydale, the roads leading to the Summers house are the same roads populated, in some less-than-living fashion, with graveyards. So in the gloom, Tara passed along the outside of those gated places, trying to stay in the glow of the streetlights and near the dwindling numbers of those out for an evening stroll in a town where smart, seasoned inhabitants didn't do such things.

She knew better than most what was out there.

Which made her wish she had brought along someone else. If they hadn't all been so preoccupied they would've thought...

But there was only a moment to think about Willow before she heard the growls from the bushes to her right. She fumbled for the cross in her pocket, but found her hand wrenched around and pinned behind her, with another hand clapped over her mouth to catch her screams. Struggling in vain, she was dragged through the foliage into the graveyard proper. And thrown to the ground in the middle of six vampires.

Looking up, she found their legs like the bars of a jail all around her, closing in as they bickered about how to split her up between them. She tried to move slowly, secretively, reaching into her pocket, but one vampire, more alert than the others, kicked out and caught her in the side of the head. As she lay, dazed, looking up at the world, she could make out a girl, short and blonde, coming out of the shadows.

"Hey boys, is there enough to go around?"

* * *

"Why does she get to have a soul anyway?"

Dawn looked over, incredulous, at Xander's fiancé. "You'd rather she didn't have one?"

"No, but I think it's a valid question. And how do we know she's not going to just lose it suddenly by having ill-advised intercourse?"

"One catch, Anya: the sex would have to be special."

Faith caught Dawn's pointed look and scowled, shifting uncomfortably in her chair.

"Actually, two catches, ladies: there's no curse here. Least not that we know about." Xander looked over at the Watcher. "Giles? Oh, all-knowing one?"

He cleared his throat. "Well, yes, it would seem we do not have an Angel-like situation here. Instead, Buffy must have somehow retained—"

"Key word: somehow."

"Yes, thank you, Xander. Somehow, perhaps by virtue of being a slayer, but I cannot say for sure. Slayers have certainly been killed by vampires in the past, but I do not know of any having been turned, possibly because most vampires are simply focused on killing the slayer."

"So B was killed by some dumbass vamp too stupid to know he should be killin' not turnin'? On B's behalf, I'm insulted."

"Oh, so now you're acting on her behalf? Generous of you now that you've seduced her!" The younger Summers gathered up all the disdain a Summers woman could.

Giles flushed. "For goodness sakes, Dawn, do be—"

He was interrupted by Xander, whose head was about to fall off from swiveling so rapidly between Dawn and Faith. "What do you mean seduced?"

"Presumably, she means that Faith used her evil feminine wiles to get Buffy into—"

"My wiles are not—!"

Xander again. "Wait! You guys had sex!?"

Giles scrambled to regain control of the conversation. "I think we've already established there was a spell in play..."

"That's not when..." Dawn's voice rose an octave. "Oh my god, you had sex with her twice!?"

"Dawn, this is not the time to discuss Buffy's sexual proclivities." Seeing Xander about to open his mouth, Giles shot him a glare that shut it again. "To continue answering your question, Faith." Faith's question, if she had asked one, was the last thing on her mind. Not that she didn't welcome anything that would take the attention off of her. "Most vampires likely have a difficult time resisting the temptation of taking all of a slayer's blood for themselves. But Buffy may have come up against a vampire able to resist that temptation in the hopes of gaining a powerful minion. One able to resist slayer blood, which, as I understand, is somewhat of a delicacy to them."

Faith paled a little at that. Buffy's hand on her neck, the feeling of those fangs sliding in and the jerk of being pulled against the blonde's body.

Willow straightened a little in her chair, lifting her chin as she looked over at Faith. "So maybe you should be happy that I made Buffy stop when I found the two of you."

She snapped back. "B woulda stopped." But the slight tremor in her voice was not quite as sure.

"Or maybe she wouldn't have. This is the girl that chose to suck in the first place." All eyes shifted over to Anya. "Well, that's how it's done, isn't it? They drink most of your blood, and then you have to drink some back from them. So she had to actively suck to become a vampire."

Giles looked troubled for a moment. "Well, yes...perhaps we should ask her when she—"

With a start, Willow glanced over at the clock. A sinking feeling. "Giles! Tara would have had time by now to make it there and back, and we've just been sitting here talking, and why didn't we send someone with her because this is Sunnydale and vampires!" She leapt out of her chair, grabbing her jacket and rushing for the door.

Faith beat her to it. "Nuh-uh. You ain't gonna go by yourself." Her look suggested several reasons why not. Willow looked less than pleased at her escort, but her fear for Tara won out and she raced out the door, permitting the dark slayer to follow, and leaving the rest of the gang to stare at the door.

* * *

With a growl, the vampires all turned against the interloper.

"What makes you think we'll share with you?" The speaker glanced up and down, dismissing the petite blonde as a threat. And then was promptly dusted in his ignorance. Tara, her vision a little blurred from the blow, felt the ashes as they drifted down.

The blonde's eyes were fiery and wild as she looked around at the others. "Guess he was absent that day in kindergarten." A sweet, feral smile. "Who wants to share and share alike next?"

And in a beat they were at it, the blows raining down as Tara crawled to get out of the way of the clamoring vampires and the falling bodies. She could hear the blonde's growl of pleasure as a vampire went sailing with her uppercut. Through the air and down hard next to Tara. Distracted now that he was so near much easier prey, the demon reached over for the witch, pulling her to him with an iron grip as she shook her head to clear it, frantically trying to think clearly, to fumble, to cry out...

When he was dragged away from her by the feet. Through the haze, Tara made out her savior tossing the demon like a child over into one of his compatriots so that down they both went in a heap. The blonde did not wait for them to get up. Tara thought that she had never seen the slayer so much like the killing machine she was as now, when she was just a blur of motion, body as weapon, then staking, diving through the dust to the next with the aftermath of each opponent covering her.

But she had little time to watch as she was jerked to her feet by another, who was taking advantage of the slayer's distraction to swoop in like a hyena for the forgotten scraps. Which happened to be Tara. She succeeded in crying out this time, even though she could not see her attacker behind her, and could not cry out again before he had his hand closed around her throat and his teeth to her neck, piercing that skin and growling as he set in on her.

She could feel the blood he was taking. And then feel him ripped away, painfully, to be dispatched as all of his friends had been in a flurry of punches and then finishing, staking drives. She just had time to feel the absence of his threat, the coughing, the return of breath in gulps, the relieved eyes searching for those other familiar ones—finding them familiar but not, now dark and wild—before Tara was caught once again by the throat, pressed to the blonde she knew this time, her hands fluttering uselessly against the vampire slayer's grip and unable to escape the eyes trained on the blood still flowing from her earlier bite, as she saw need and excitement and battle fever play out their drama in front of her, until Buffy closed her eyes and Tara felt fangs slide in again.

Which is where Willow and Faith found them.


	22. Chapter 22

A/N: Thanks so much for reading and reviewing! I love hearing y'all's insights on how this is all playing out! Who will get the lucky 100th review?

And now a rather long one for you...

* * *

In the first instant, the sight of Buffy's fangs in Tara's neck just about killed Willow.

In the second, there was just red rage in her eyes, and power, and words on her lips she couldn't have repeated if you'd asked her, and a blackness that flowed from within and then out through her hair and eyes, coloring them in that same inky shade.

If Faith had been thinking about things in a reflective manner, she would have thought that they were in deep shit.

But, of course, who had the time! Her first moment was taken up with shouting "B! Stop!" and rushing over to free the struggling and fading blonde witch, so she missed the blackout going on next to her. Until she felt the force of it, that is, when a blast of energy pushed past her and slammed into the blonde vampire, who, with a cry, went flying back against a mausoleum. Faith let out her own cry at the sight of Buffy sliding down the marble.

And another at Tara falling to the ground. Faith stretched out to catch the blonde witch, and managed to save her from the hard earth. Only to have Willow rip the girl from her arms to cradle her herself. So Faith, stumbling away, rushed to Buffy's side. The blonde was already struggling to rise, shaking herself back to humanity, watching Willow and Tara in horror. Her face crumpled with an "oh god!" as she brought her fingertips to the trace of blood still on her lips. And, standing before Buffy, her hands unsure of what to do, Faith saw the flush of feeding drain from the blonde's face as the other girl looked past her, over her shoulder. The Chosen One stepped back to press herself against the marble.

"Will, your hair..."

Faith whirled just in time to see Willow stalking towards them in all her black-haired, black-eyed glory.

"Whoah, Red, what's with the goth shit?"

"How could you?" That voice dangerous and low, ignoring Faith. Buffy groaned at the betrayal she saw reflected in those eyes.

"Will, I didn't mean...I don't know what...I'm so—"

"It was Tara, Buffy! Tara! She believed you had a soul!" Buffy could not move any further back.

"But I do! I just—"

Interrupted, incredulous. "You have a soul and you still do this to me!?" Buffy winced, looking behind Willow to where Tara was still pale, kneeling on the ground, her hand to her neck to stem the blood. Tara tried to rise and swayed a little. The blonde slayer moved as if to help, her mouth opening to say the other girl's name, only to find herself forced back into marble, knocking her head hard against the stone.

"Hey! Get your fuckin' magic fingers off her!" Faith could feel the slayer rising in her, prickling at the challenge. She could see the same reflected in Buffy's eyes as she shook off the blow. Faith stepped in between the two, forcing her fingers out of the fist they had formed to reach out instead and catch Willow's shoulder.

Willow jerked away. "Faith the Protector? Oh, this is good! You gave her the first taste for human blood, and now there's Tara—"

"Willow, baby, please...I don't think she knew what..." Tara moved up behind her ex, but was ignored.

Buffy pushed back in front of Faith, drawing herself up in front of the black-haired witch, feeling the anger rising in her. "Leave Faith out of this! She was trying to help, and succeeding more than you managed to..." Even through the opaque mirror of those black eyes, Buffy could tell she'd hit with that one. A small part of her wished she could pull it back. But the bigger, more insistent part of her, on the other hand...

Willow's defensive walls came slamming up between them. "Oh, so now this is my fault! It's my fault you let yourself be turned and led us to believe we could trust you!"

"Let myself be—?"

But Faith cut in ahead of her, feeling the heat of rage prodding. "You're goddamned right it's your fault with all your ass-backward spells. Maybe if you'd fuckin' stop tryin' to fix every—"

"Hey! My spells didn't make her lose it and bite Tara and they sure as heck didn't make her sleep with you, so _I'm_ obviously not the problem—"

And then Faith lost that battle with her fist, and allowed it to bunch together all fist-like and take a shot at Willow's face.

With a yelp the former redhead drew back, grabbing her nose with one hand while the other came up and, with a flick of the wrist, sent an electric current arcing through the air towards the dark slayer, catching the other girl right in the chest and sending her writhing to the ground.

Tara's mouth dropped open. "Will, how in the world...?"

Willow's eyes widened at the current flowing from her fingertips, amazed.

Buffy barely had time to get out a shocked "Holy—!" before she was hit by the pain radiating off of the dark slayer. She felt the nausea rising up in her throat and grabbed her head, nearly driven her to her knees. She fought to stand, and felt a surge inside of her as the pain drove the demons within her to the surface and slayer and vampire flooded past the feeble barriers humanity erected against them. With a snarl, she rushed at her old friend, breaking that electric current as she threw the witch to the ground. Tara ran to the dark slayer gasping on the ground, trying to help her up, only to look back and find the blonde slayer on top of a confused-looking Willow, using unearthly strength to hold her down as her fangs plunged in at the behest of centuries of killing instincts passed down from the demons within her.

"Buffy, no!" Tara's scream. "Faith, we've got to...!" But the brunette was already on it, stumbling a little in her run at her counterpart, tackling that blonde off of Willow and pinning her underneath as she struggled and pressed her body up against Faith's to get free.

The dark slayer found a stake in her hand. It was pointed at the vampire's breast. Faith stared down at the weapon that was an extension of her hand in the way it had been so many times before, even to kill. It indented that beautiful skin now, and with only a slight push...

She felt that the other girl had stopped fighting underneath her. Looking down, she saw that the ridges and fangs had faded and retracted under the dawning recognition of the face coming into focus above. Faith's face, the dark slayer's conflicted eyes.

"Faith?"

And Buffy's gaze dropped to the stake, then back up to meet Faith's, then over at Willow and Tara with their twin wounds. She squeezed them shut, feeling the continued press of Faith's body on top of her. Until that body wasn't there and the stake wasn't there, and then she wasn't sure what she felt.

* * *

"Does she have to be chained up like that? It's so medieval."

Willow looked over at Buffy, fixed to the wall next to the cot in the basement by a thick chain and manacle. The blonde was scowling, knees drawn up to her chest. The false health of her complexion showed up even in the dim light. Willow turned back to Dawn.

"You didn't see what she did to me and Tara."

But Dawn could see the bites on their necks well enough and shut up about it. Buffy looked up to apologize again, but could see Willow wasn't ready for it. Giles was sitting next to Buffy on the thin mattress and nodded. "Thankfully, Willow was able to stop Buffy in time to prevent a worse outcome." Willow smiled a little at him for that one, but the watcher had already turned to the Chosen One. "How do you feel?"

The blonde slayer shrugged.

"Is that a shrug of 'I'm done killing for the day, thanks'?" Anya had chosen a safe vantage point near the door.

Giles turned and frowned at her.

"Hey, G-Man, Anya's got a point there. I mean, maybe Dawn and Willow and Tara should invest in some garlic or neckwear or something." He glanced down a little sheepishly at Buffy. "No offense, Buff...just till we can be sure."

"Xander, I believe the chains were intended as more than a fashion accessory." Giles pinched the bridge of his nose.

"Oh, right. Carry on then."

Giles attempted to do so, turning back to his charge. "This whole situation is most unusual, Buffy, so any information—"

"Like why you sucked." Getting blank stares, Anya realized she should clarify. "The blood...in the first place, I mean."

Buffy blinked for a second. "I don't...I don't remember doing it."

"Don't you have to choose? You know, like they offer you the whole eternal life thing and it's way tempting because you're dying and all that, so you drink."

"That's the movies, Dawn. I've had a front row ticket to the not-fun that is eternal life for how many years now...why would I choose that?"

"But it was some super-bad vamp, right? 'Cause, you know, you kick ass, so anything that kicks your ass has to be..." Xander ventured an encouraging smile.

"It was just some vampires."

"Pretty fuckin' large group of 'em, I'll bet." In response to the stares, the brunette slayer continued by way of explanation: "We had a dream thing."

"Just some vamps that got lucky."

"Was there thrall involved?"

"Was there what?" Faith scowled from where she leaned, arms-crossed against the wall across the room.

Buffy looked over at her, sighing. "Long story. To answer your question, Dawn: thrall free."

The younger Summers' voice was smaller this time, more tentative. "You didn't mean to be like this. You meant to die."

Buffy ducked Dawn's eyes. "I meant to be a slayer."

There was a brief silence in the room. "It may be that the slayer is responsible for your current...state." Buffy turned to Giles, but Faith cut in before she could say anything.

"Slayer chick doesn't wanna die."

Giles looked at the dark slayer thoughtfully. "The slayer chose to drink as a matter of self-preservation. And now is perhaps fighting to hold off the demon. We'll have to research it further of—"

"Which we're all too tired to do tonight, Giles." And even the watcher had to admit Willow was probably right.

* * *

Up in the witches' bedroom, Tara stood by the window, looking out into the early morning. She felt Willow come up behind her, wrapping her arms around her. She couldn't help but close her eyes at that sensation, the warm security of her former lover, the whisper of her voice.

"I'm so glad you're okay...I don't know what I would've done if..."

"How did you...?" Tara trailed off as the redhead started kissing across the top of her shoulder, over near that new wound, trying to replace the pain there with something else.

Between the kisses: "...I just saw you...and it happened and I kinda went crazy...because it was you..."

"But with Faith...?"

"I don't want to talk about Faith." She turned the blonde to look into her eyes. "I want to talk about apologizing to you." Her words came out in a rush. "I was trying to make things better and you know I was, but I shouldn't have done that to you because you mean more to me than anything and I can't lose you, I just can't, Tara."

"I don't want that either—"

Willow leapt at the first part of it, and cut off the last with a kiss that grew more insistent with the long absence of kisses behind it. And her tongue found the other girl's as her body pressed the blonde's back into the frame of the window. And in some small part of Tara's mind, she knew she should be pressing to talk more about this, but when here was her Willow tree and the incredible luck of her attention and of her hands now pushing Tara to the bed and the beauty of that pale, whip-thin body on top of her and the innocent look of that face, those lips, the hands on her, she couldn't think about anything else.

* * *

"Aren't the chains enough?" Across the room, Faith still leaned into the wall in the shadows, even after everyone else had gone. The blonde's bitter voice jolted her from her thoughts. Looking over, Faith found her standing, tense, at the end of her chain. "Do I need a guard, too?"

Faith saw the blonde's eyes flick down to the stake jutting its point out from her pocket. The dark slayer scowled as if she hadn't realized it was there. She reached in and pulled it out, rolling it back and forth in her hand, staring at the woodgrain as she crossed the room until she stood in front of the blonde, stake still in hand.

"You think you do?" Faith couldn't make out the expression in the other girl's eyes.

"Is that what you're going to be?"

Faith felt every slayer sense in her screaming "vampire!" even as she moved closer, pushing it. "Why? You gonna vamp out on me again?" She held down the knot in her stomach with a familiar defense mechanism. "Maybe you'd rather I get Spike for ya...you guys can do the creature feature thing together." Faith saw the hurt darken the other girl's eyes.

"I don't want..."

"Oh, so it isn't the vamp now, huh? Is it the slayer?" Faith pressed against the blonde, feeling the aftermath of the fight under her own skin, the tingle of those familiar urges, made all the more poignant by the blonde in front of her. Her eyes traveled along the line of Buffy's collarbone, up the shadowed curve of her neck, to the slight parting of those lips. "I know what she wants." She could see the other slayer knew it, too, and trembled with the the danger and thrill of their proximity, the heat of Faith's body.

"What I want is to know where _I_ am in all—" But she was stopped by the brunette's mouth on hers, cutting off those words, and she felt herself giving in because everything else, particularly explanations these days, was so much harder. Especially with the fingertips brushing up her spine, feathering through her hair.

"Slayers and vampires I know how to deal with." And Faith knew how to deal with the hands that were grasping for her now, and the clothes that were in the way, and the skin pushing into skin, and the body arching up to deal with the ache they both felt, and they dealt with those things until, exhausted, they tumbled down together into sleep, the stake still in easy reach in the tangle of sheets near the wall.

* * *

A/N: Wasn't intentional that Buffy showed up in this story in chains, too...just sorta worked out that way. Course I don't know what that says about me...


	23. Chapter 23

A/N: A million thanks for your reviews on the last one...they pushed me along to finish this chapter. Still love to hear your thoughts. Still love it that y'all are still reading. Still making this stuff up as I go...

* * *

Faith woke before Buffy, pulled from sleep by the unfamiliar sensation of someone next to her in bed. She found the blonde's face pressed into her shoulder, one arm thrown across her. She was so still. Not breathing. Dead. Which probably would have been creepy had it not been for the fact it was Buffy, to whom creepy did not come naturally.

Faith watched her sleep, splaying a hand across that unmoving back. Buffy murmured, her lips coming into contact with skin, slowly coming awake as her mouth moved to kiss into that skin. Heat building at the touch of those lips, Faith shifted, placing knees on either side of Buffy's back, brushing her fingertips across cool skin. She leaned in to kiss in between the stunted wings of those shoulder blades which stood in stark relief as Buffy stretched her arms above her head, pushing her body into the mattress. Faith dipped her face into the blonde waves that played out across the other girl's back, inhaling the scent of her, still strangely Buffy in spite of it all. She brought those kisses back down into the valley of the Chosen One's spine, down it, feeling as the blonde pressed into the bed under her, pressed her hips down, and Faith's hands walked themselves down that back, down the backsides of Buffy's thighs, then back up, inside of them. She took those fingers away for a moment—a moment only—to touch them to herself, gasping, and then to take that heat underneath to find Buffy's center, feeling the shiver in her blonde counterpart at the warmth and then the shiver at the pleasure they created, having found that sensitive node and then slipped one finger inside, then two, then three, making a rhythm of them and Buffy's hips...

Until Buffy's whispered "wait" hit Faith's ears like a shout and everything froze and the blonde turned her perfect body to reveal the beauty that the sheets had been privy to, and turned to face Faith, coming up to sit with her legs wrapped around Faith, whose legs were wrapped around Buffy and whose fingers were still in Buffy, feeling the tremors in her as Buffy looked into her eyes and said her name over and over and, with a shudder, came, slumping forward into Faith's arms.

Faith held her for a moment, then laid her gently back, sat up, swung her legs out, and pushed the sheets aside. The forgotten stake rolled out of them and clattered into the wall.

"I swear to god, Faith, if you get out of this bed again..." Buffy's voice was surprisingly forceful in spite of its still-sleepy slur.

"Huh?"

"I'm starting to think I have leprosy." The blonde looked down at her naked body as she rolled onto her back. "But...it's sort of awkwardly apparent that I don't."

She was beautiful, so Faith looked away. "Going for a smoke."

"You know, secondhand smoke is about the last thing I'm worried about these days." She gave a half-smile, eyes on Faith's, challenging. "You'll have to think of a better excuse."

The dark slayer shrugged and pulled out a cigarette from the pile of her jeans on the floor. Buffy watched the shadow of her jaw as she pulled on it, perched on the edge of the bed. Faith's dark mane fell down her back, across her shoulders. Buffy had to hold back the hand that wanted to take a strand and tuck it behind that delicate ear. There would be no hair tucking at the moment. This was fight or flight for Faith, so Buffy stayed where she was, watching as the other girl smoked in silence.

But she couldn't stop herself from talking for long. "Thank you for—"

"Look, B, I don't do this gushy morning-after talk thing."

Buffy tried—and failed—to pull back the snark. "And if I'd gotten all doe-eyed and asked you to adopt a cat with me then we'd be at gushy." She rolled her eyes. "Anyway not sure it qualifies as gushy if one of us is chained to a wall. That's more S&M-y." Dark brown eyes glanced over at the thick chain running from that slender wrist to the wall. They had slept on top of it.

"Either way, it's you and me and we're talking and you're gonna get around to talking about the way we just had sex and you'll be saying how it was a really nice experiment and, B, I don't do—"

"Yeah, yeah, I got the memo." A bit of snap came into her voice as she pulled the covers up to her chest. "Tough girl slayers don't talk because they don't stay around long enough to." She sniffed. "For a rebel, you know, you're surprisingly predictable, Faith."

"I knew this fuckin' wasn't gonna work..." The younger slayer grumbled underneath her breath, standing up, reaching for that pile of clothes.

"I can't leave." The sharp words cut into that grumble, and Faith stopped, staring over at that tight, hurt face looking back at her from the bed. If Buffy hadn't been so pissed off, she would've been unable to even speak to the wild beauty, all dark and light, standing, unabashed, and, for the moment, still in front of her.

"You mean 'you.'" Faith was sure of it.

"_No_, I mean _me_." The blonde held up the manacled hand, then dropped it back down with a clatter to the bed. "So I just want to make sure you know that if someone leaves this goddamned basement, it's _not_ gonna be me. Is that what you want to do, Faith...'cause, it's what you've been doing and if you're going to do it again, you better just do it." Buffy knew she was rolling the dice. She could see the dark eyes turning over the proposition.

For a moment, she didn't go, so Buffy decided to count that a victory. And, flush with that victory, she stepped out on a limb.

"I need you, Faith."

The dark slayer blinked and found a familiar retort and a familiar wry grin. "Ya ain't gotta tell me, B. I could tell the slayer had a little H&H goin' on. She didn't want any fuckin' frozen yogurt either."

And then the blonde had to count to ten before she could talk without snapping. "I'm not going to deny there was that...I'd rather be a slayer than a vampire." She kept her eyes fixed on Faith's, not letting her get away with it. "But I'd rather be Buffy, too." Her gaze dropped a little of its challenge. "It wasn't just the slayer that needed you." The dark slayer could see the insecurity clouding those green depths. "Even under Willow's spell, even forgetting everything, _I_ still needed you."

The shadows across Faith's face made it difficult to read. She was still stunningly naked, a pale and slim thing that was still ready to bolt. Buffy moved slowly from the bed, coming to stand in front of the other girl, at the full extent of her captivity. When the dark slayer spoke, her voice was hoarse, low. "'S'all well and good, B, for you...but, between me and slayer chick, Faith's the fucked up one I'm tryin' to run away from."

Buffy reached out a hand and caught the curve of Faith's hip. "That's not true." As the other girl opened her mouth to disagree, the blond slid her hand around to rest on Faith's lower back, holding the younger girl close. "It wasn't the slayer that led you to help me that first time...with the...blood. It wasn't the slayer that kept you from killing me earlier."

"She still wants me to. Kill you. I can feel it." And Buffy could see it in the curled fist at the brunette's side.

"And you are still incredibly tempting to me." Buffy's voice broke a little at "incredibly." Slayer blood. Faith didn't know, but she could imagine. She could almost feel the rush under her skin, the warmth coming under the blonde's fingers. "But somehow we both keep avoiding it with each other." Buffy pressed her body into Faith's, looking up at her. "And I don't know what that is, but it's something."

* * *

When Willow found them later, the blonde was curled into the crook of Faith's arm, asleep. The brunette cocked an eyebrow at the redhead, daring her to say something, anything. Willow stared at them, unsurprised, her face closed off in the shadows.

_She trusts you. _

The dark slayer looked around wildly, searching for the source of the voice, finding only the three of them in the room. She opened her mouth to speak.

_Shh...it's me. Willow._

_What in the...? Get the fuck outta my head!_

_You can just hear my thoughts...it's no big deal. _

_To you, maybe. To me, it's lookin' like some weirdass shit. _

_I don't want to wake Buffy._

_Well then, mind-rape makes perfect sense...oh wait, no it doesn't._ Gritted teeth._ I'm warnin' you, Red, I don't like people gettin'—_

_Well, you seem to like Buffy._

A pause. _Take it up with her._

Faith thought she could make out the other girl's face as it softened a little in the dim light. _We've been having trouble finding the time these days. _The redhead shifted her glance from where it had rested on the slumbering blonde back up to Faith. _Like I was saying, she trusts you and she needs you._

_So I hear_.

The redhead cocked her head, watching the dark slayer's eyes, sensing the wariness in the other girl, but a calm underneath. She had a hand resting against Buffy's side, feeling the stillness there. _Which means you have to stay._

_Wait, who said anything about—?_

_She's dangerous, Faith._

_Not to me._

The redhead sighed at that. _Maybe, but to me, to Tara, and who knows who might be next, maybe Dawn or Xander or Giles...we can't tell and that's the problem 'cause it hurt too much to see Tara like that and I lost..._ Now it was Faith cocking her head, trying to find what trailed off there before Willow picked back up the thread of conversation._ So I need to trust you. _

_You want me to be like the big old Faith sedative for the beast? Red, have you met me? Everything B and I do turns to sparks and fights...not to mention the fact that I was just in—_

_Buffy doesn't have sex casually, Faith._ Willow gave her a small, tight smile, before it faded away._ I'll be ready to do something, but I don't want to have to. Make it so I don't have to._

Faith would have had to have been deaf, or unable to hear voices in her head at least, not to have heard the warning in that.

But she didn't know who exactly was being warned.


	24. Chapter 24

A/N: So sorry this one took so long! Reviews are always warmly received, in cozy fashion, in front of a fireplace. Doesn't that sound nice?

* * *

When she did go, Faith was smart enough to leave a note. It wasn't a long note. In fact, it just said "going out." Nonetheless it was a note, and if she hadn't left one she probably wouldn't have been allowed within ten feet of the beautiful, naked blonde sprawled out over the covers. So, note it was. But damned if she was going to get all wordy.

She turned back and scribbled "B," at the top of it.

Then, tiptoeing up the stairs, kicked herself for that obvious addition—there was no one else with them in the dark down here. But she was too proud to go back down and erase it now.

Outside the basement door, it was a whole different world of a sunny Saturday. Faith looked back at the door she'd just shut behind her, wondering how the California girl was doing without sun, missing the light coming into the kitchen where Dawn and Tara were making a mess.

The cooks looked up as she came in, both taking in where she'd just come from. Dawn opened her mouth, but was interrupted by Tara.

"Good morning, Faith!" She crinkled her brow. "Or actually it's noon..."

"Nope. We're making cinnamon buns."

"Yes, you're right, Dawn. Clearly still morning." She nudged the younger Summers, who was taking a pan out of the oven. "Can we interest you in one?"

The slayer cocked an eyebrow at the hot pan Dawn thrust in her direction, but reached for a bun, then promptly dropped it with a yelp, putting her two burnt fingers in her mouth.

"Dawn..." Tara's voice was a warning and accompanied by an eyeroll at teenagers to Faith. Buffy's sister wiped the smirk off her face and mumbled a "sorry" and a "give 'em a minute" as she slid them off onto the cooling rack.

Dawn kept her eyes on the buns, but her question was all for Faith, still mumbled. "Is she okay?"

"Think so. Probably like to see you, tho." The dark slayer waved a hand at the cooling pastries. "Maybe take her one of those...make her feel, you know, normal."

Dawn cocked her head, looking from Tara to Faith. "Does she eat real food?"

"Oh, good point..."

Tara supplied that she had seen Spike crumble crackers in his "drink."

"So maybe it's just a enjoying thing, not a food-for-life thing?" Awkward pause as no one wanted to make the obvious comment. Dawn resolutely brushed the silence aside, slapping a bun on a plate and marching over to the basement door.

"You'll have to wake her...and she's sorta naked..."

But the younger Summers was already gone. Faith glanced back at Tara, shrugging.

Tara watched the closed door. "Buffy won't do anything to her..."

The slayer glanced down at the bite mark still visible on the blonde's neck. She remembered finding Buffy—or not really Buffy—at the other girl's throat. Squeezed her eyes shut that she hadn't gotten there sooner. Opening them she found Tara still waiting for an answer.

"Nah." The other girl relaxed a little. "Think she'd just lost control with the fight and she hadn't fed." She paused. "Dawn's safe. And I think B'd like something that makes her feel like herself." Tara knew what self she meant.

"Is that what you do?" Neither of them had noticed Xander standing in the doorway. Faith tried to read his face and thought she caught a glimpse in his tight expression of how she'd hurt him before. He caught the corresponding wince in hers, even though her voice was carefully even.

"Apparently I don't make her feel like killin' me." She met his eyes. "Not sure if that's like B or not. 'Specially when it comes to me."

He nodded as if he'd come to a conclusion. "Fair enough."

This was awkward. She pointed towards the door. "Look, I'm just gonna run out." Quickly continuing. "Find her some blood so she doesn't lose her shit again."

"Thanks, Faith." The brunette stopped with her hand on the doorknob, turning back to look at Xander for a moment. She shrugged because that was the easiest response to what he said. Without another word, she was out the door.

* * *

It wasn't long before Giles arrived to see Buffy. Tara pointed him downstairs—as if he could have forgotten where they chained her! But he smiled now to find her sharing a pastry with her sister. Buffy was sitting up cross-legged on the bed, the chain in the shadows behind her. Dawn was filling her in on some drama at school. Both girls looked up as he came down the stairs. Giles saw a serious expression replace the blonde's more carefree one from a moment earlier.

"And how are you feeling today, Buffy?"

"Giles, you sound like a doctor." Dawn chided him.

"Quite right." He tried to look a little less like the concerned clinician. More like a friend. Maybe a parent, though he didn't really want to remind Buffy that he had been about to leave and be an absent one of those. "How are you?" In the end, there weren't that many different ways to say it.

"You're still here."

Clearly Buffy didn't need any reminding.

"You think I would leave now?"

"Well, let's see...you were going to leave before when things were going down the drain in song."

Giles sighed. She had him there. How had he been so foolish? So he just said it. "I was wrong." The blonde's face softened at that simple admission. Though older than her years in so many ways, she was young in others. Her readiness to go back to the relationship they had, for example. Especially when she needed him. "I'm here now. We'll find a way to help you deal with this. Xander, Willow, and Anya in theory, are already working on it upstairs. Hopefully, we'll be able to figure out why you..."

Dawn spoke up for her. "It wasn't her fault. She just hadn't—"

But Buffy cut her off. "Until I figure out how to control it, it _is_ my fault." She sighed. "I should have been able to tell Spike—"

And now Giles' turn to cut Buffy off. "Spike?"

And Dawn. "What does Spike have to do with this?"

The blonde waved the question off, seeing Dawn's face and knowing what Spike had been for her while she was...gone. "It doesn't matter. I was just trying not to drink at all...it just felt so gross, so wrong—" She shiver that ran through her could have been distaste. Buffy strained not to think about how good it had been when Spike gave it to her, how good it had been with Faith.

"The slayer in you talking, no doubt." Giles laid a hand on her shoulder.

"But _not_ doing it was wrong!" She sighed. "I just don't want to hurt anyone." Looking over, she saw the scowl on Dawn's face. And she wanted desperately to make it go away, make everything like it was before she died, before their mom died. So Buffy straightened up, trying to mimic Willow's resolve face, as she draped a reassuring arm around her sister. "Maybe we should call up Angel and ask him where he got the good stuff, get recipe tips for smoothies, all that."

There was a glimmer of a smile, but she still cut her eyes at Buffy, watching her sister's reaction. "Faith's already gone to get some, you know."

Buffy met her gaze with one cocked eyebrow. "Well then, I'm gonna say there won't be smoothies involved."

"Speaking of frozen things, Buffy," Giles retreated to more familiar watcher ground. "There is the matter of this freeze ray and the stolen diamond that we should look into as well, as soon as you're feeling up to it. Willow thinks the diamond may have some sort of odd quantum properties."

"Wha—?"

* * *

It took Faith only a few minutes and one fight to realize she was invisible.

Knocked to her ass by some sort of ray she didn't see coming while walking along the streets of Sunnydale. Which were supposed to be relatively safe in the daytime, by the way. She got up and dusted herself off, trying to pick out the smattering of voices she heard arguing a little ways away. But before she could locate them, she was promptly run over by a group of co-eds not watching where they were going. So she shoved back with a "hey!" and received only incredulous looks and a tentative hand that reached out and stumbled upon a breast. Then there was some punching action. Then they ran away and she found herself looking where they'd been and in the store window of the waxing salon behind that. There was nothing there.

A black van screeched out of an alleyway, nearly taking her out, banged into something that also wasn't there and then sped off. Faith picked herself off the ground again.

Great. She brushed off the gutter grime that must be on the seat of her pants. Even though she couldn't see it. Just fucking great. Why did this town hate her so much?

Invisible...really?

Although, on second thought...

She gave a half-laugh. What she wouldn't have given for this earlier? When she'd wanted to sneak beer out of the convenience store. When she'd wanted to escape her asshole father. Figures she'd get the thing she wanted at the wrong time.

She walked along the sidewalk, careful to avoid running into anyone this time. She scanned the shop windows. A sporting goods store with an enticing weapons display. She bet she could still get a great crossbow in there. Probably the same one she'd gone for when she and Buffy had broken in.

Before everything got fucked up. When it was simpler. Simple as it would be now to want, take, have to her heart's content. She'd known people with the same mantra in prison. People who couldn't wait to get out because they knew how to do it better the next time and not get caught. They'd watched those forensics shows. She'd listened to them over a bummed cigarette. And now she could do anything she wanted! Anything!

She wandered the streets of that town for hours with anything in her head. She sat on a bench outside the Espresso pump watching the anything all around her. She walked through the quad of the university, that land of possibility, that wasn't for her. She took a spot on the dance floor at the Bronze and just danced, for once, alone. Anything!

And she found herself sneaking out the back door of a shop, visible stolen bundle in her invisible hand, slipping back through the graveyards so no one would notice the floating booty except the dead, who weren't talking. All the way to the Summers abode in the back door and through because no one was looking for her. They were all busily researching in the living room, but not the Chosen One. Over to the basement door, avoiding its creak, to where Buffy must still be chained, which was such bull—

Until she saw Spike in there with the blonde she sought and nearly dropped her offering of pig's blood.

But she didn't drop it, and she didn't say anything, and she stayed where she was, watching, gritting her teeth.


	25. Chapter 25

A/N: Here's another for you because it's a weekend and weekends are full of good things. Hopefully full of reviews, too! I've set a goal for myself to wring as many reviews out of y'all by the time I get to 28 chapters as the 126 there were for "Within." Entirely arbitrary goal, I know, but they always say you should set 'em. I follow rules like that.

* * *

"So, they got you all chained up down here, eh?" He pointed at the metal links behind her. "Like you're some sort of demon."

"And they would pretty much be right." She was standing, on her guard. "But then you already made clear you knew that."

"Yeah, and you know it, too." He leaned back, arms crossed, against a pillar. "I could smell the blood from the wounds upstairs. I see you've developed a taste for lesbian."

"Okay, first of all, ew with the smelling thing. And, second, I didn't choose to bite Tara and Willow. You make it sound like picking out a fine wine. It wasn't like that."

"No, fine wine would be your girl, the rogue." Unseen at the top of the stairs, Faith's ears perked up.

Buffy's face was in the shadows. "Don't talk about her like that." Both of them were remembering their earlier conversation, the one that had left her in such a state, the one about what she should do to Faith. Her chain clinked a little as she moved closer to him, keeping her voice low and dangerous. If he wanted a demon, he might get one, but it might not be the one he wanted. "I won't."

"Oh, you won't, huh?" Faith's eyes narrowed as he reached out and grabbed the blonde's manacled wrist. She wondered what it was (in the long laundry list) that Buffy wouldn't do with her. "That why you let 'em keep you locked up here? You know you coulda said you were fine, docile Buffy and they woulda trusted you. Woulda let you out." His smirk showed how pleased with himself he was. "Maybe you don't trust yourself." His face softened a little as he inched closer and almost whispered into her ear. "I know you've been sleepin' with her. You know it's not what you want." Faith had to lean in to hear it.

The blonde slayer growled in frustration, trying to put a little distance in there, only to be caught by the hand that still held her wrist. "I don't know what I want, so you certainly don't." With a jerk, she broke free of his grasp, but found he followed her as she backed up as far as her captivity would allow. She didn't want to get on the bed. But he pushed her back to the edge of it.

"Typical woman."

That earned him a punch right in the jaw, sending him reeling back. "Well, I want to kick your ass. Thanks for clearing that up for me."

"So do it, slayer. Hit me." He rubbed his jaw a little, still smirking. "Always did like it rough. That they way your girl likes it, too? Or is she afraid of that part of you?"

She would have hit him if he'd been close enough. "I don't hit—"

"Oh, sure! Like violence hadn't always been sealed with a kiss between you two."

"It doesn't have to be—"

"Yeah, it does. 'Cause now you got two beasties in you that want to kill, and it just gets mixed up with all the feedin' and ruttin'."

Her lip curled and she shook her head. "That's just sick, Spike. That's not me."

"Sure it is. 'Cause I'll do this..." He danced in and gave a punch that snapped her head back because she hadn't been expecting it. Faith would've come over the stair rail right then had Buffy not immediately lashed back out with a kick that sent him back into one of the basement supports.

"You bastard...you hit me! You can't hit people! That's against the rules!"

"You ain't people, sweetie...you're a demon now and demons aren't good so no headache for me when I hit you." He enjoyed the dawning awareness on her face. "And when I hit you, I knew you'd hit me back. So now you're feeling all charged from the fight, and somebody else's blood is pumping in those veins, and you wanna just..."

Buffy blinked at his words, at the excitement she could feel building in her. The image of Faith came into her head: porcelain skin underneath her mouth, the abandon on the other girl's face, nails raking across her back. And, seeing Buffy's eyes turn dark with desire, Spike misinterpreted himself into it, lunging in, pressing her back onto that bed and down into it by the weight of his own on top of her, his dick moving against her thigh, his mouth rough, capturing hers, hand reaching up her top.

She was so stunned by it that she cried out as the images of Faith evaporated in place of that rude mouth on hers. She felt the bile rising in her throat, and the anger rising just as quickly on that wave of battle readiness until she moved to headbutt him, to throw him across the room and possibly through the wall.

"Get off of me, you ass—!"

But someone beat her to it. And suddenly she was only lashing out ferociously at the air.

Air was all that Spike saw as he went flying through it to crash against the wall. He stood up to fight, but couldn't find an opponent.

"'No' means I'll stake your fuckin' ugly vampire ass if you try!"

"Faith?" Spike and Buffy simultaneously.

"Yeah."

"But how...?"

"No clue. Just feelin' a little less-than-visible these—" Spike had taken the opportunity of her speaking to locate the voice and move to punch the living hell out of it. Faith cut herself off, ducking back. Spike grabbed his head in pain.

"Bloody hell! You'd think you'd be wrong enough to hit!" His groan was abruptly cut off as he found himself pinned up against the wall by a growling, unseen slayer.

"B! Stake!"

The blonde put her hand over her eyes. "No, Faith, it's okay...just let him go. He can't hurt anyone."

"You gotta be fuckin' kidding, B." The voice was sullen. "Looked like he was tryin' to hurt you."

"Well, he can't hurt innocent people anyway." A pause. "And I was dealing with it."

Still sullen. "Thought you didn't know what you wanted."

A pause. Buffy wanted to find the other girl's eyes, but couldn't, of course. "How long were you listening, Faith?" Goddamn Spike. She wanted to knock the grin right off his face.

"Was comin' to bring you some eats." Buffy's eyes found the cooler on the stairs and could imagine what was inside. "Found you here with pretty boy instead, gettin' cozy." Spike's head jerked to the side with a punch. Faith had evidently found the grin repulsive, too.

"I was _not_ getting cozy with him! In case you hadn't noticed, I'm sort of stuck in one place down here...it's not like I asked him to come see me!" Faith saw the other slayer's eyes flash a little in the dim light as they honed in on the blonde vampire, the one with the smirk still on his face, so confident in his bedroom eyes. Faith wisely moved out of the way. "And if he ever tries to do that again..." Buffy threw the stake that had been tangled in the sheets. It lodged itself halfway in the wall right between his legs.

He yelped. "Hey! Watch it!" Sensing it was time for him to get out of there before the other slayer decided to take things a few inches further north, he rushed for the stairs, knocking into Faith who hit the wall with a thud as the door banged open and he was gone.

Willow poked her head through the door and looked down into the basement. "Was that Spike who just barreled through here?"

"Yeah, Will." Buffy sat down heavily on the cot, still trying to get that taste out of her mouth. Straighten out her blouse. "Any way you could reverse the invite for him? He just overstayed—"

"Where'd Spike go?" Dawn's head popped up behind the redhead and Buffy cut of her sentence.

"Did he do something to you Buffy?"

"Yeah, he just fuckin'—"

"Faith!" Buffy's eyes cut significantly to Dawn.

"Faith? Where's Faith?" The younger Summers forgot, for the moment, that something was being censored from her.

"Invisible. Don't know, don't ask."

Dawn's eyes found the air at the bottom of the stairs that had said that. "Whoah! That is so weird!"

"An invisibility spell?" Willow's brow furrowed. "We'll have to find the counter-spell." Faith could practically see the wheels in her mind turning, or rather the pages of spell books turning.

"I don't want you workin' any witch fu on me till you're sure."

The redhead looked a little insulted. "It's not 'witch-fu.' It would just be a matter of—"

The younger slayer cut in. "I dunno. First the freeze gun and now this. Probably the same pack of 'em. Playin' with some powerful shit."

Willow nodded in a way that didn't concede the point. "We'll do some research."

"Until then, maybe we should throw a sheet over you or something." Dawn giggled a little at the prospect. "I think there's an old Rainbow Brite sheet that Buffy used to have on her bed."

Faith's look was entirely lost on the other girl, what with it being invisible and everything.

While the other two were talking, Willow's eyes narrowed and she stretched out her mind to touch the blonde slayer's.

_Are you okay?_

Buffy met Willow's gaze, wide-eyed. _Will? Is that—_

_It's okay. I know you don't want Dawn to hear. What happened?_

_Nothing. Just...he got a little too personal. Nothing I couldn't handle._

Willow pushed past what she was saying and reached for the images in her mind. She didn't notice Buffy's brow furrow at the further intrusion she only unconsciously felt. The redhead was focused instead on what she had found. Spike on top of Buffy. Buffy's revulsion that she could feel as if it had been her own. She gritted her teeth. Un-invite indeed.

Realizing the awkward silence that had settled in the room between Dawn and invisible Faith, Willow spoke aloud to Buffy, trying to keep her voice light. "Can you...I mean, do you want to help? Up here with the research? If you think you can..."

"Yeah, I'd like that." Willow could see the relief in the other girl's eyes that she hadn't had to ask for it herself. That Willow in particular had offered it. As Buffy said it, the manacle fell away, and, for the second time, the blonde slayer looked at her old friend, wide-eyed. "Uh, thanks." She looked down at her naked wrist, then over at the cooler Faith had left on the stairs. "I'll be up in just a minute, okay?"

After the door had shut again, she heard Faith walk up the stairs and bring the cooler down to her.

"It's kinda freakin' me out that I can't see you." A pause. "Which means, you know, that I can't see you shrug." She sighed. As if reading Faith wasn't difficult enough on a regular basis. She took the packs of blood held out to her. She took them and turned away as she felt her canines extending at the smell of it. She forced herself to delicately open a corner. Drinking with her back to Faith.

Behind her, she heard the clatter of metal chain and, looking around, saw one end of it up in the air. Buffy look at the end that had been fixed around her wrist. It just seemed to have opened up for her.

"How'd she do that anyway?"

"You know Red's fuckin' scary, right?"


	26. Chapter 26

A/N: Thanks again for reading! Please review...reading your comments is the only thing distracting me from CNN these days (and I think I really need to get away from that overstimulation--it can't be healthy)!

* * *

You could tell exactly where Faith was by the indentation in the couch where she was sitting and the indentation in the arm of the couch where she had her legs slung over. There was a little scuff mark where she had shifted earlier and rested her boots on the coffee table. Buffy had her legs curled under her at the other end of that couch as she listened to Faith's husky voice, trying not to look at where the other slayer wasn't because it was too weird.

"So, like I said, it was just like BAM, knocked me on my ass and then these jackasses ran into me and then I found out they couldn't see me 'cause I couldn't see me either."

"Invisibility is most irregular, of course..."

"Well, duh."

Giles leveled a look in Faith's direction for that one. "As I was saying, invisibility is unusual, suggesting perhaps a spell of some sort."

"That's what I tried to say, but did anyone listen to me? Oh, noooo." Willow sang-song the last bit, looking up from the index of the spell book she was scanning to make eye contact with Tara, who was frowning a little. Willow didn't see that Buffy was also watching her.

"Dunno, G-man. I heard these voices arguin' and then this black van knocked me in the gutter, peeling out of the alley right after it happened."

"A black van? Wasn't there a black van stalking you a little while back, Buff?" Xander waved aside the seating chart his fiancé had put in front of his face for his approval.

"Yeah." The blonde slayer wrinkled her forehead. "Wow, that seems like ages ago."

"Van stalking? Seriously? I feel like I'm in a bad spy movie." Faith's invisible hand was picking pills off the throw on the couch.

"Oh! Maybe we can check out the scene, see if we can find any clues!" Dawn was fairly bursting with energy.

Xander smiled at her enthusiasm, then raising an eyebrow at Willow. "Whadda ya say, Will? You always were great at the Nancy Drew thing."

The redhead looked a little less than thrilled, but, seeing Tara's hopeful glance, she pasted a big smile on her face and said brightly that she was game, anything to help, and all that sort of thing. Giles looked grateful that progress was being made and things were going to get done. "Yes, researching the scene! Perhaps there are remnants of the spell or some evidence of the van or its occupants. A black van sounds terribly pedestrian for a demon, but I suppose that one never knows."

"If its those same guys with the freeze ray, we ain't lookin' at demon."

"Yes, quite right. Anything we could find out would be helpful in getting Faith back to normal. Perhaps they are mixed up in magic as well."

"Or quantum physics. Will, didn't you say something about that diamond stolen at the same time Faith had a run-in with Mr. Freeze?"

Willow nodded at Xander as she put on her coat. Anya patted her fiancé on the arm for his two valuable contributions to the research conversation thus far. He beamed. And then was dragged back into the seating chart, where Anya felt he could make equally valuable contributions.

"Maybe they'll have left a textbook or something!"

Buffy reflected that she really needed to inject a little more normal fun into Dawn's life. But she smiled, nonetheless, at her sister's smile and mouthed a barely tolerated "be careful!" as the younger Summers dragged Willow out the front door into the night. There was an awkward silence as everyone except Anya watched the closed door. Giles finally broke it, approaching Buffy as though he would take a seat next to her on the couch, only to realize that Faith was already there and come instead to stand on the blonde's other side, placing a hand on her shoulder.

"How are you feeling this evening, Buffy? Better, I hope?"

The blonde slayer threw a glance at the other blonde in the room, at the carefully tied scarf around her neck. Tara smiled back at her. Of course, Tara wouldn't have hard feelings! Buffy looked back up at her father figure, being carefully mock serious.

"All fed and well-rested, so no more crazy sprees for me! I know you and Anya are dying to repurpose those manacles for shoplifters in the store."

Before he could respond, Anya piped up. "No more crazy sprees! Yeah! That means we can put her with your Uncle Rory."

Xander leveled a look at her. "Except that we don't hate Buffy."

"Okay, Faith then."

Xander rolled his eyes, placed a restraining hand on hers and tried to throw a plea for understanding in the dark slayer's direction. "No, honey, we don't hate Faith either. So, as much as I might like to see Uncle Rory get a fist in his face for one of his sexist comments..."

"You're coming to the wedding?" Buffy looked over, astonished. She looked over, but, with Faith being invisible and all, she was sort of afraid she might be staring at Faith's chest or something. And not even getting the benefits of that.

Buffy could only envision the shrug, though she heard it in the brunette's voice. "Didn't know I was invited."

"We'd be happy if you'd come, F—."

"You'll understand there's no time for invitations now." The former vengeance demon was earnest and a bit harried. "And no more blood for the calligraphy."

Everyone else's face in the room blanched. Giles raised his eyebrows. "I'll not mention, then, that I haven't gotten mine." Anya looked as though she might reconsider, given that he was her employer. He waved her back. "No, no need, really."

"No sweat. I'll make it if I'm here." Buffy frowned a little at Faith's comment, but kept her mouth shut. The other slayer went on, warily. "But I'm not gonna be a bridesmaid or any shit like that."

"Oh, we already have Buffy and Tara for bridesmaids!" The two blondes shared a grim smile. "And Willow will be Xander's best man."

"Will still has to do the dress, though, right?" Buffy looked a little desperate, even though she'd only been privy to glimpses of the fabric so far. It had the potential for badness. Of epic proportions. They must all be in it together. She looked at Xander. "Did we decide there would be alcohol?"

Her old friend shrugged. "Kinda pointless to keep it out, with my family, and it'll make things easier for everyone."

"Much." Buffy agreed solemnly.

She caught a low chuckle to her left. "Now I'm gonna _have_ to be there." Buffy gave that voice the frown it deserved.

"Just 'cause you're invisible doesn't mean you can get away with snide remarks, missy." She knitted her brows. "And who told you what I was like when I got drunk last time? Was it Xander...'cause there was totally an explanation for caveman Buffy." Xander snickered from across the room.

"And on the note of invisibility, perhaps we should all get back to trying to bring Faith back to the land of the visible?" Giles' suggestion was a mandate and, with a few undisguised sighs, they launched back into it. It wasn't long, however, before the slayers' natural energy made for a lot of fidgeting, to the general annoyance of everyone else, and was finally met by Giles' suggestion that they make themselves useful and find some slaying to do. Grateful, the two girls bounded off into the night, stakes in hand.

* * *

Dawn and Willow were already out there, in front of the waxing salon.

"I don't get it." The redhead stared at the shop window advertising its services.

"What's not to get? Haven't you ever had anything waxed before?"

"Call me crazy, but I just have a sort of aversion to pain for pain's sake." Willow raised an eyebrow at the younger girl. "That and Buffy told me about a mishap involving hot wax, an overzealous sister, and an outcome in the Mona Lisa vein."

Dawn giggled, remembering, as she scouted around for clues. Until she ran smack into an invisible dumpster. "Ow! Where'd that come from?" She rubbed her shin and caught a whiff of trash. "Oh, wait! It's invisible! Like Faith! They must've caught more than just her!" She dashed around, hands out, for other invisible landmarks. Her shin took the brunt of a fire hydrant.

Willow had been tagging along indulgently, but couldn't help but get excited as she saw the paint chips just hanging in the air, as if they were levitating there, just waiting for her. "Black paint! Dawn, it's Buffy's black van!"

"But that could've been any black car." Dawn nonetheless, produced a vial from her pocket. Like a girl scout, she had come prepared.

"Any black car that hit it _after_ it became invisible? I'll take my chances." The redhead scraped a few paint chips in and put the top back on it. "Let's get this back and see what we can find out with it!"

For a moment, Dawn thought things were just like old times. The good old times that is, when the redhead would get a glint in her eye at the thought of putting some puzzle of a prophecy together. Willow's smile was infectious, and the two of them fairly skipped back in the direction of the Summers home.

Along the way, they, of course, had to pass by the requisite graveyards. Dawn brought her stake down into her hand, ready if needed. But it was Willow who saw something first: just the glimmer of a black duster rounding a mausoleum. Spike. Spike on top of Buffy, looming. She felt the anger welling up inside. She cut her eyes at the younger Summers, seeing that the girl hadn't been looking at the right place at the right time and had missed him.

"Hey, Dawn." The other girl's head swiveled towards her. "There's an herb growing over there," Willow pointed into the graveyard proper. "and I just want to get a little since I think I might need some for the invisibility spell, at least if it's the one I think it might be." She took a breath, knowing Dawn was ready to come charging along with her. "Do you think you'll be alright here for just a minute?"

Which made Dawn straighten, determined to prove that she certainly could manage on her own, being the slayer's sister and all, and no slouch at this whole killing vampires thing. Willow forced herself not to smile at how easy it was as she said she'd be back in just a few minutes and ran off in the direction the duster had disappeared.

* * *

"Well, if it isn't the red witch of the southland. What do you want?" Spike turned from the fridge as he put away the last of his blood supply, watching her watching him.

"Gotta say, Spike, I'm hurt." She stuck her lower lip out in a pout that didn't reach her eyes. "Can't I just drop in to say hello?"

"Could. Won't." He cocked his head at how assertive the redhead had become since he'd first met her. He guessed power would do that for you. "Blondie didn't send you then?" Then he shook it. "Nope. Figures."

"And why would Buffy be interested in seeing you?" She kept her voice light and ran a finger along the edge of the sarcophagus in the middle of the room, walking slowly around it as the vampire grew agitated, throwing the empty sack of blood he'd been working on across the room. He hardly noticed her gritted teeth, the white of her fingertip as she pressed it into the stone. "Think she's already been there and done that with vampire. And I think I can safely say you're missing a few of Faith's assets."

"Oh, she knows what she's missin'." He leered a little and flopped across an armchair. "Now mind you, I just get the usual from her: some snarky comments about how she thinks I'm a bastard and a demon, some stick-up-her-ass, holier-than-thou drivel, but, you know, and she'd probably kill me for tellin' you—but then, hey, I'm already dead and neutered, so how much worse can it get, right!" Willow wondered if he might be a little drunk. The hot wave of whiskey in Buffy's face, his hands pinning her down. "—blondie just keeps comin' back and it's to me and I can see it in her eyes, fuckin' with her darkness—"

He never got the rest of it out. The room's dim light had suddenly brightened until it seemed as if the sun itself were in the room and Willow was in the middle of it, it's black center. And Spike could only shriek trying frantically to find something to get behind as his skin began to smoke. There was no way to escape it, like there's no way to escape the summer heat, and his skin blistered and he clawed at it unable to even lunge towards Willow even if, in all the brightness he could find her where she stood, just staring. He could feel his body trying to tear itself apart in flame and, running, leapt for the stairs to the lower part, falling down them and stumbling, screaming to the bed for the cover until his mouth was a soundless "o" and he thought he could make out a scream that wasn't his, that was younger, a girl. And the light mercifully faded as suddenly as it had come, with the slamming door upstairs, leaving him huddled in a corner, charred and bloody.


	27. Chapter 27

A/N: Anything for a review!

* * *

As Willow tore out of the crypt, she heard Dawn scream her name again. That familiar voice should never go so high! The redhead could still feel the warmth of the sunlight she'd created only moments earlier. So when she hit the night air outside, it was startlingly cool. Bracing. Her vision clouded over again, this time with panic as she saw the younger Summers struggling against a pack of vampires. They were getting the best of her.

She sprinted across the graveyard, opening her mouth to yell that she was coming, even as she saw another vampire wade into the fray, and Willow thought she wouldn't make it in time. Dawn was down on the ground, fighting for her life. The new vampire was diving through the crowd to take first dibs on her and was going to get there, so Willow let her panic take over and felt the warmth growing again—the burn of the sun—as the graveyard started to fall in shadowy relief ahead of her and she might have a chance of saving Dawn!

She smiled at the shrieking vampires, all of them trying frantically to get away from the light, her light! The new one fell to the ground with a sharp cry, scrambling back for cover, cradling the arm that the first rays had touched and left blistering.

And then Willow was knocked flat on her back by a punch to the jaw. The light she'd made winked out. That punch could only have come from a demon or a slayer. A person sure couldn't punch like that. But there wasn't a demon or a person, just the moon above, full like a big eye, looking down on her.

"Are you fuckin' insane, Red!?" The downed witch mumbled "Faith?" as her tongue rolled around a tooth that had been knocked loose and tasted the iron of blood. "B and I are tryin' to help here and you decide to let loose with the sunshine out your ass!"

Willow's eyes opened wide at that, horror-stricken and human as she tried to roll on her side and up, to find Buffy and Dawn and help them. Only to find an invisible boot pressing her forearm firmly into the ground.

"Just stay where you're at, goddammit! I got enough to deal with without worryin' 'bout you, too."

And then the boot was gone and the redhead was left with an angry red mark, looking out across the ground to where Buffy—she could see it now, of course that was Buffy!—was pushing herself off the ground, visibly gritting her fanged teeth as a glancing blow caught her right on that raw skin. Willow, wide-eyed, watched the world askew. Watched the blonde slayer dive in again after her sister, punching right and left, dragging one vampire back by her hair just as fangs pierced Dawn's neck. Strained to make out Dawn under it all. The tremor running through—was she alive? was that her blood?

Several vampires were dust before the group knew it. Then they wised up to the floating stake that they didn't understand but knew meant death. Two decided to take it on and found a corporal, even if invisible, Faith. But they couldn't see what piece of her they were getting, so they missed a lot and got more than they gave, and fairly soon were dust themselves.

Buffy came flying back near Willow, having been caught off guard by one vamp as she tried to peel another off her sister. She landed hard against a tree, but got up, shaking her head, charging back in only to find herself in the path of an unseen Faith, who had been knocked back by the vamp she was fighting. Reflexively, she caught her sister slayer around the middle and cushioned their crash to the ground. They rolled together and came up together. Willow could see the fierce gleam in Buffy's eyes and imagined it was in Faith's, too. Blonde took an invisible arm that pulled her arm and launched her forward into one of the last two vamps.

Those vamps, having been smart enough to last this long in a fight with two slayers, were smart enough to leave Dawn where she lay, curled on her side, and turn their attention to the threat bearing down on them. The one that caught the brunt of Buffy's charge reeled backwards with a roundhouse, but grabbed out and caught the blonde's blistered arm as he did so. She let out an enraged growl, and slammed the stake through his sternum. Whirling, she saw the other swirl of dust as the invisible slayer made the vampire permanently invisible.

So Buffy dropped to her knees next to Dawn, cradling her sister in her good arm. The other girl was pale, coughing from the hands that had been around her throat, bleeding from the puncture there. The grass flattened as the other slayer dropped down beside them.

All Willow could see was the blood and the bruises and the raw, charred skin, and found herself sputtering, crawling on hands and knees along the ground, sobbing now, her face a wreck, saying "Dawnie!" over and over again, that girl she and Tara had practically been raising, "Dawnie!" and getting no response from Buffy, who was holding her mouth in a thin line and holding her arm funny where it had burned and where Dawn's clothes brushed up against it now as Buffy tried to help her stand. Faith's unseen support took over and took the teetering girl into her arms, towards home. Which left Buffy standing there, arms crossed, looking in the direction they were going, away from Willow.

And the redhead's crawl had almost made it to Buffy's boots and she looked at the sole of them, brown and a little battered, as she said "is she going to be alright?" over and over. The boots didn't say.

Buffy took her by the arm. "Get up." The redhead could hear that it was practically a snarl. When she dared to look into the other girl's face, she could see the fangs hadn't faded away, even though she'd dusted all the bad guys.

"Buffy! I thought she'd be okay, she said she'd be okay! I didn't know, I'm so sorry, I heard her scream and I knew she had a stake but I came running because I heard her scream and I'm so sorry, and..."

"Will, it was Dawn!" The blonde's face was still hard. Tears welled in her eyes. "Dawn! How could you leave—?"

The redhead's stream hadn't really stopped. "...it was just going to be a minute, and I was—"

"What, Will? What could've been more...?" The blonde's voice was more indignant now, the panic subsiding and the hurt in her arm, the realization she'd nearly been dust herself. "And that spell...Will, I—"

The redhead pleaded. "I was _trying_ to help! I could've taken out all those vampires at once," Even in the middle of her tears, she was sort of amazed at herself. Her voice trailed off. "I could've saved Dawn..."

And Buffy didn't know what to say to that because it might have been true. And it might have killed her in the process. The whole thing just made her want to lash out at someone. Anyone. She gritted her teeth, feeling her fangs out still. She forced herself to walk away. Willow followed. They made their way home in silence.

* * *

The blonde slayer sat on the edge of the kitchen table as Tara tended her wounds. She only half-watched the blonde witch carefully wrap her arm, concealing the ugly rawness, shiny with ointment. She was more focused on Dawn, perched next to her, getting the finishing medical touches from Xander. There wasn't anything that could make the bruises less ugly, but she hadn't really lost that much blood, once they got the worst of it wiped away.

"All patched up and good as new, kiddo." Released by Xander, Dawn hopped down, a little unsteady, but eager nonetheless to tell Giles that she'd been able to dust two vampires before anyone got there to see. She scowled a little to see his attention currently taken by Willow, who was explaining what had happened. Xander was about to snap the kit closed again, but turned, searching the air around him. "Faith? Do you need...'cause I can't really tell...what with..."

"Forget it" came the husky reply, and Buffy's head snapped in the direction of it, surprised to find it right next to her. She felt her sister slayer's energy and knew her own matched it.

Tara's ministrations stopped as she heard Willow mention the spell that had caused the wound she was trying to set right. Buffy saw the blonde's hands pause over her forearm, trembling a little there as Tara looked over at her girlfriend, struggling to catch her eye. Failing, she caught Buffy's instead. The slayer held her gaze, quirking an eyebrow upwards as if to ask how worried she should be. Tara's face did not reassure her.

Faith took the more direct method, stepping in on Willow's story. "What she's tryin' to say is that she nearly made it so B's ass woulda fit in a Dixie cup."

"That's not true!" All eyes shifted to Willow. "Okay, so maybe it's sort of true, in the technical sense, but it's not like I _intended_ to. Dawn was in danger!"

"I could've handled it!"

"Dawn! It was too much—" Buffy came off the table and Dawn's back went up.

"But I—!"

"No offense, but you ain't a slayer." Faith tried to smooth the younger Summers' feathers. "And for that many vamps you need a slayer."

"Doing magic in the heat of the moment is dangerous." Tara's words were quiet, and almost lost among the other voices competing in the room. "You don't have time to center yourself—"

"Willow just should've never left Dawn to begin with." The blonde slayer cut in, glaring over at Willow, who had the grace to look a little shamefaced.

"She was just going to be gone a few minutes to look for some herbs or something, it wasn't a big deal..."

"Herbs? Will! You left her for basil!?" Buffy was nearly shouting.

"Not those kinds of herbs, Buff." Xander tried to cut in. "For a spell."

That peaked Tara's interest. "What kind of spell? And what kind of herb grows in the—"

"For one, I'm more worried about Will's near-dusting of the Buffster."

Faith nodded at Xander, bristling from next to the blonde slayer. "Damn straight. Magic menace over here was outta control."

Willow forced the shrill edge of her voice to soften a little. "I saw Dawn hurt and I just acted...I couldn't have waited!"

"And the only reason it was a problem was that Buffy looks pretty much like what was attacking Dawn. So from a strategic standpoint, Willow's spell was well-chosen."

Buffy's brow furrowed. Across the room, Willow looked surprised, but pleased, to have someone on her side. "Yes! Thank you, Anya!"

Anya shrugged. "Of course, from a moral standpoint, I completely disagree because I need Buffy for a bridesmaid."

"How on earth is that a moral..." Giles shook his head. "Oh never mind! I agree with the underlying point." He turned to the redhead. "Willow, Tara's right that one must be disciplined in order to use magic during such times." Giles looked at Willow, trying not to be swayed by her youth. Could she really be ready? How much had she learned while he hadn't been paying attention? He couldn't bring himself to ask the question.

"The Goth look's just not screamin' discipline to me."

Giles' look swiveled from Faith to Willow. "Goth?"

"Black hair, black eyes, horror-movie creepy."

"Dear Lord, Willow! That is...I mean...the black arts..." He hardly knew where to go. He tried to regain his composure and avoid spooking the redhead or making her any more defensive than he could already see she was amidst this roomful of tense people. "Perhaps there could be a moratorium on spells." He saw Willow opening her mouth in protest, so he held up a hand. "Not long...just enough time for you to ensure that you have the necessary discipline—"

He was interrupted by an agitated blonde slayer, who was about to get into his face. "She nearly gets Dawn killed and you tell her to do some Tai Chi! I can't believe this!"

Giles looked at her sharply, taking in the dark eyes, the quivering muscle in her jaw, and saw that a firm hand was needed there as well. "Well, that may not be quite what I had in mind, but, given your own slippages of late—"

"Slippages! Hers were way worse than mine! She knew she was attacking one of us! She attacked Tara!" The redhead's eyes blazed across into Buffy's, which flashed from anger to remorse, flickering over to Tara's neck as they did so.

"I didn't mean..." Buffy's voice trailed off, not as sharp as it might have been.

Giles' eyes softened a little as he watched her, but he kept his voice firm, if only to keep Willow from getting defensive again. "As I was saying, perhaps you could benefit from some control exercises as well, Buffy. In the meantime, I suggest that Willow put her formidable computer skills to work to try to locate the make and model of this black van and trace it to an address. For now, at least, I'll leave you to your youthful energy..."

"And to the morning." Buffy's eyes darted to the window outside, but even though she couldn't see it, she could smell it. The ache in her arm reminded her why she feared it. With one final glare over at Willow, and a fruitless glance around the room for Faith, she sighed and stomped off to her basement.


	28. Chapter 28

A/N: I can't believe it's been six days since my last of these! What are things getting to! I've tried to compensate with a larger-than-normal chapter. And now here's my last shot at 126 reviews in 28 chapters...

* * *

When Faith found Buffy, she was sitting cross-legged on the cot, eyes closed. The dark slayer spoke softly into her ear.

"Works better if you're not gritting your—"

Faith didn't get the whole of it out before the blonde yelped, eyes flying open. In trying to hurriedly unfold her legs, she lost balance and careened onto the floor. Only her natural slayer grace stopped her from ending up in an ungainly heap. Still, she managed to knock her knee against the frame of the cot on the way down.

"Ow! Faith? Jesus, you scared the hell out of me!" Buffy still had one hand on her chest, reflexively steadying the breath she didn't need. She looked up and around her, searching in vain for her counterpart. "Maybe you could, like, cough or something when you're going to sneak up on people."

"Then it wouldn't be sneakin'." The younger girl chuckled. "'Sides, that was some pretty funny acrobatics, B."

"Har, har." She had fixated enough on Faith's voice to launch a pillow in its general direction and was pleased to see it strike home.

"Thought you were supposed to be workin' on controllin' that anger."

"I _was_, until a certain brunette decided to go all stealth."

Faith gave a snort. "If that was yoga, don't think it was relaxin' you. You had one a those vein thingies in your forehead goin'."

The blonde gave the air around Faith a look. "And that's precisely _why_ I was doing it." She cocked an eyebrow. "'Course, now that I've nearly had a heart attack, I really don't feel like any deep breathing, downward-facing dog at the moment."

A pause. "Not even gonna pretend I know what that shit is."

The blonde kept going, getting up and starting to pace across the floor. "And I don't think meditation's going to keep me from feeling like screaming." Buffy knocked her fist into the support beam. "How could she leave Dawn like that?"

"I told you somethin's not right with Red."

"Maybe, but I don't know what to do about it and this is _so_ not my territory. Giles and Tara know about the magic stuff. I'm just good for kicking butt." The blonde slayer whirled and began pacing again, her voice almost a growl "And out-of-control vamping on people I know. God! This is so messed up! How did things get so messed up!"

Faith was quiet for a moment, watching the agitated blonde. Maybe at one time seeing her out of control would've seemed like pretty rich irony. Still got a wry half-smile. "I could teach you Tai Chi or somethin'." Halting. "You know. If you're interested."

"How do you...?"

"Angel."

"Oh." Buffy closed her eyes, remembering the last time she'd seen the two of them together. Angel and Faith together, in that kitchen, looking intimate. Everything that had happened and everything she'd said that night. Words she couldn't take back.

Faith saw the memories flicker over the other girl's face and imagined she knew what they were. She turned on her heel to go. She could never tell Buffy enough that that hadn't been what the blonde had thought it was. Buffy never listened to her and now she was ready in a second to just go right back to where they had been—

The blonde grabbed out as she passed by, and caught Faith clumsily around the waist, wrapping her in her arms, not letting her go, though the dark slayer was doing her best to.

"I don't wanna hear it, B, it wasn't—"

"Look, I can't see your mouth to put my hand over it, so you're going to have to just shut up on your own." The blonde leaned back to look up at where Faith's face must be, keeping her arms locked around the other girl. She could feel her straining underneath her hands. The slayer didn't like to be contained...especially when she was still hyped from the fight earlier. But she stopped her mouth. Buffy went on: "What I was going to say, before you started your mad dash for the door, was that I never apologized for that." She felt Faith go still, her heart beating so loudly Buffy could practically hear it in her own chest. "I was a real bitch—"

Faith snorted.

"Okay, thanks very much for agreeing with me." The blonde swatted the other girl. "I'm trying to do the right thing here." A pause. "And that means that I should've..." She took a breath. Faith avoided saying "took the stick out of your ass," which was probably better left unsaid. "...that means I should have said I'm sorry. You know, officially. Earlier." Faith just stood there in the other girl's arms. Being all invisible, she was hard to read. Buffy stuck her neck out. "So, I was thinking, maybe we could just try this whole Tai Chi thing. Just the two of us." And as she said it, she bit her lip, wondering what the other girl would say, feeling the want and the frustration and the fight earlier rising as she held the other girl fast against her. "Because I'm not feeling very relaxed right now."

That was an understatement.

Faith still said nothing, and, for a moment, Buffy thought she might walk away. You never could tell with Faith. And she did move out of Buffy's grasp, but Buffy felt fingers trailing up her arms and shoulders behind her until Faith was behind her, moving fingers out from the middle of Buffy's back, across shoulder blades, down one arm again in a caress that left goose bumps until the dark slayer caught her hand and pulled it slowly, beginning that slow routine she had seen Angel do so many times, trying to deal with his own demons.

They moved silently together, the push and pull as the blonde slayer tried to focus on her breathing and not the body behind her, its heat, its quickening breath, its precious blood...

And of course, Dawn chose that moment to interrupt. "Buffy? What are you...are you doing Tai Chi?"

The older Summers stopped, looking over at her sister, slightly guilty. Dawn had Xander in tow with several boxes. The young man cocked his head a little at Buffy, frozen mid-move.

"Buff...way to pull on the Eastern traditions."

"It's Faith."

Xander started to look around for the dark slayer, because that's what you do, but stopped himself. "Hey, that's great—"

Dawn cut in. "You know Tai Chi?"

"One of those things you do to pass the time." Came the husky reply from right behind Buffy's ear.

"In prison?"

Buffy looked over at her sister sharply, but the younger girl's face held more curiosity than malice.

The confirmation was short and to the point. "Yeah."

"Weren't you just making fun of this stuff, like, a half an hour ago with Giles?" Having resolved the mystery, Dawn turned again to Buffy.

The blonde gave a half-smile. "Yoga wasn't working out so well." She noticed the boxes Xander was hauling and changed the subject. "Whadda ya got there, Xander?" Her voice went up a little. "Is it something for me?"

He came down the stairs and put the boxes on the washing machine. "Just some things...Dawn and I, well mostly Dawn, thought maybe..."

But Buffy was already over riffling through them, squealing as she pulled out Mr. Gordo. Dawn was already arranging some pillows on the cot. Xander unpacked a jewelry box, some clothes, Buffy's diary. When Dawn looked over at her sister, she thought she might cry because Buffy looked like she might cry. The blonde pulled Dawn to her in a big hug, holding her there until the other girl made little flailing motions with her arms like air was becoming an issue.

* * *

By the time Dawn and Xander went back upstairs, leaving Buffy in a basement made a little more like a home, Willow's computer skills had cracked the DMV database. Searching for black vans that matched Faith's description turned up only a handful of hits in Sunnydale as Xander looked over her shoulder.

"Well done, Will, you gumshoe, you." He laid a hand on his old friend's shoulder. Looking over at Tara, he saw the other girl watching the redhead carefully, a cautiously optimistic smile on her face. He tried to smile his own reassurance at her. This is Willow. This is his friend. She does the computer thing and her eyes have that gleam while she's doing it.

Tara smiled back and changed the subject. "Is Buffy alright? Did she like the things you brought her?"

"There was high-pitched squealing and general expressions of pleasure, so I'm gonna go with a yes on that one."

"At least the pillows and stuff make it look a little more like a room than a dark basement."

"That's good. I can't imagine what it must be like to be unable to see sunlight anymore." Tara looked over at Dawn. "And I know she wishes she could be up here with you more, Dawn."

The younger Summers gave a teenager's shrug that covered all her fears of abandonment and tried to play them off with an adult's ambivalence. "She does what she can. I can take care of myself, too, though."

"Did you want to go play detective with me? Try to track down these houses? See what we can find?" Willow's questions came a little more rapid-fire than she would've liked, a little more nervous than she would've liked. This was her chance to make up for the last one of these expeditions they'd gone on. The one that hadn't gone so well.

And Dawn's face as she looked at Willow squarely for the first time since coming in the room, meeting the redhead's eyes, was caught between wanting to go and be a part of something that might be exciting and remembering where that had left her before, when Buffy and Faith had had to... But that really had been her own fault, hadn't it? Maybe she just needed to train with Spike more, get better at handling groups of vamps...she could've gotten it under control. So she was just about to say yes and get her coat when Xander stepped in.

"Why don't you let me join you, Will? It'll be like old Scooby times."

He'd hardly gotten it out when it was ix-nayed by his fiancé. "Oh, you're not getting out of the planning that easily, Mr. Harris! Do you think the cake will just pick itself out?"

"But, An...I told you, whatever is—"

"It's okay. I'll go."

All heads swiveled to Tara, even Willow's. The redhead cocked her head a little, a smile trying to break out across her face. This was a good sign, right? She wants to go along. She wants to go with Willow.

And so the two became a pair once again, going out to find out how to get Faith back visible.

* * *

"I still don't get the pig."

"Mr. Gordo?" Buffy held him up. "I've had him for, like, forever. Didn't you ever have any—" She broke off, realizing the sort of answer she would get and not wanting to make Faith feel bad about having to give it. And yet, she'd already made her feel bad because it was apparent where that question had been going. Damn.

Faith didn't say anything. And when Faith wasn't talking, it was pretty much impossible to tell what was going on in her head.

"Faith, I'm sorry, I didn't..." The blonde was standing, not knowing where to look in the low light. "You know, this invisibility thing really sucks." She felt foolish, looking around. "Doesn't it get to you?"

"Can't see as it makes that much difference." The other slayer's voice was tight. Buffy could hear the emotion running right under the surface of it, carefully tamped down.

"But we can't see you!"

A wry chuckle. "Probably makes me a better killing machine."

"You're not—"

"I mean, did you see me with those vamps? Pretty fuckin'—"

"No, I didn't _see_ you! That's the point!"

Pushing a little. "Why you wanna see me, B?"

"Why are you being so difficult? Maybe I just want to see you!"

"Thought you didn't know what you wanted."

Buffy let out a growl of frustration, feeling her fangs extend ever so slightly. "Goddamn Spike!" She ran a hand back through her hair, gritting her teeth at the thought of the other blonde vampire, his mouth violating hers. She almost gagged. "That wasn't what... Look, what he was talking about was...was that he thought I wanted more from you—"

"What, the sex wasn't good enough?" Faith couldn't resist the pushback. After all this time, there was something about needling the blonde that came naturally. Especially since Buffy had insisted Spike be left alive, in spite of what she'd seen him do...

Buffy lashed out at the wall next to her, leaving a fist-shaped indention there, to go with the others she'd already left in it before. "No, Faith! Your blood. Slayer blood." She spat it out. And for a moment, the other slayer was quiet. Buffy could hear her breathing fast. She could practically feel the quiver in the air.

"Do you?"

"Yes! Yes, I want it, but I also want _you_ and I think I'm starting to...I don't know, Faith, I just know I need _you_ and—" She leaned her head against the wall and Faith could see the lean muscles in the blonde's arms, the curve of her waist, the way her jeans clung to her hips. And she could feel the heat in her, reacting to the wildness of the other slayer, telling her to take the risk.

Buffy gasped as she felt Faith press her body up behind her, flush against her back. The dark slayer's hand found the hem of Buffy's sheer black tank, sliding its way up her stomach to cup a breast.

"Oh, fuck..." It was drawn out, practically a moan.

"B! Didn't know you had it in ya." Her mouth found the back of Buffy's neck, running a tongue along the nape.

"We've always...misunderstood...each other." The words were halting as Buffy leaned into the wall for support as Faith's hands made quick work of her bra and found the sensitive nipples, brushing fingertips across them ever so lightly. "I want...to understand." And as she said the last bit, she turned to put her back against the wall and find the other girl's body with her hands, running those hands across skin and clothes, up to find Faith's face, her lips, pull her close. She closed her eyes so she wouldn't see the blankness in front of her, but instead hear the other slayer's ragged breath, hear her heartbeat, smell her skin, the shampoo she'd used.

"I bet I can make you say it again." Faith hummed into Buffy's neck and the blonde groaned at the vibration and at the hands so hot on her skin, ripping her shirt off, nails raking down her stomach, the finger threaded through a belt loop, pulling her close. The dark slayer's mouth closed around an erect nipple, rolling it on her tongue, teeth grazing the tip.

"Oh, my fuckin' god, yes!" And Buffy's fingers walked down the other girl's back to cup her ass, jamming their hips together, holding Faith to her as Faith's mouth came up and caught her own. Buffy's fingers found the fastening of her bra, deftly removing it and the shirt above it, flinging those invisible garments into some forgotten corner of the room as she pulled the dark slayer back and on top of her.

The buckle of Buffy's wide brown belt bit into Faith's stomach as the slayers moved their bodies against each other, cool and hot, visible and not. The blonde's fingers reluctantly left a breast to venture down to the button fastening those leather pants, feeling the button through its hole, finding the zipper and working it slowly down. She could hear Faith's gasp, the little cry as Buffy's fingers teased her dark curls, then backed away, helping her shimmy out of the in-the-way garment and tossing it aside. Buffy's eyes, squeezed shut, could imagine the ivory of those legs wrapping around her dark jeans, pressing a thigh in between to make Buffy gasp in turn. As if by magic, the buckle of her belt unworked itself and soon her jeans were shed, too.

"Beautiful..." Faith's words came as a whisper, but the blonde caught them and caught the other girl's mouth, mumbling "feel so good" right into it. And it felt good to both of them, skin on skin, hands everywhere, Faith's mouth working its way down the flat of Buffy's stomach, fingers gently pressing the insides of Buffy's thighs until they fell open, and Buffy arched up off the bed at the tongue that found the slick, sensitive skin, the mouth that closed around her clit as two fingers slid inside and felt her as she clenched around them, until the blonde's world was lights and the thump of blood she could hear in Faith's veins calling to her and the fangs as she struggled to keep her face from changing all the way.

But the basement door was flung open wide and Dawn came flying down the stairs yelling as Buffy yelped, scrambling for covers.

"Faith! It's Willow, they found something and—oh my god, I'm _so_ sorry, Buffy, but it's Willow on the phone and she said to tell you Jonathan and Warren and something about Faith's molecules or something, maybe that she was gonna just come apart because of the ray that hit her from the gun. Hang on, she's here...Willow? Are you...?" Dawn was almost to them with the phone when she put it back to her ear. "Willow? Buffy! She's gone...she's not there! She was at the house...oh, wait, hang on." A pause, with talking on the other end of the line. "Wait...who are you?" Another pause. "Where?"

Dawn dropped the phone to her side. Giles appeared in the doorway. Buffy was standing now, covers clasped loosely around her.

"Dawn! What is it?"

"They've got Willow and Tara. They said they want the slayer. They want a showdown."

Buffy dropped the sheet and leapt naked for her clothes, past caring what Giles was or wasn't seeing. She heard Faith moving just as quickly behind her, struggling to find her clothes.

Giles' voice cut through their frenzied movements. "Buffy. Buffy!" The blonde slayer stopped at the second one. She could hear Faith stomping her boots on to her feet and heading for the stairs. "Buffy, you can't go."

"Wha—" Her jaw dropped open as she heard Faith rushing towards the stairs, Dawn following to give her details, and she needed to be there!

"It's daylight. I'm sorry."

He looked down into the shadows as he heard Faith heading out the front door behind him. Buffy stood, helpless in jeans, black bra, and bare feet. Standing there speechless in the shadows. He could see the glint of her fangs.

And then he heard the half-growl, half-scream as she grabbed one end of the cot and flung the entire thing across the room into the far wall, where it clattered down into a bent and useless heap.


	29. Chapter 29

A/N: Ah well, so close with the reviews! I still really want to know what you think! I'm a listener like that.

* * *

It took Faith a few minutes to realize she was alone. In the whirlwind of getting dressed and Dawn giving directions, she'd just assumed the blonde was at her side.

And then she heard the scream. Standing on the front porch, it reached into her and made a big fist in her stomach. A part of her just wanted to run right back. There was a blonde down there she had wanted for so long that just the taste of her, lingering on Faith's lips, could about make her swoon. The look of Buffy's abandon was still etched in her eyelids so that she saw it when she blinked and it was like a dream every time.

One of those dreams where you ignore the things that don't fit in the picture. Like how Buffy's fangs didn't fit in the picture Faith had held in her head all those years. But, god help her, even that was sexy as hell.

Buffy had had her eyes closed, and Faith, seeing those fangs, had closed her eyes, tamping down the slayer that knew exactly what to do when she saw a pair of those.

The slayer was happy, now, for the distraction, for Dawn telling her there was something bad (or relatively so) out there that needed to be fought. Faith threw herself into it. It took some arm-twisting to get Dawn to stay behind at the house. Faith had to pull out the line about how the kidnappers had said they wanted a slayer, and no one wanted to freak them out, not when they had Willow and Tara. Okay, and it took Xander's help, too. The younger Summers wasn't happy about it, but she stayed and Faith went alone, with directions, to the arcade.

Who the fuck meets at an arcade? What are they, twelve?

The whole thing was just ridiculous.

But they had B's friends, so Faith guessed that made it serious enough. Except, given Willow, it was probably the boys she really needed to be worried about, getting turned into frogs or something. Didn't she already have some rat-girl up in her bedroom? Yeah, Faith had bets that so-called moratorium on magic wasn't gonna last long.

'Course maybe it was possible the nerd herd might just dumbass their way into actually hurting somebody.

Like her, if her molecules went all crazy. That would pretty much suck.

* * *

Looking up, after the crash, Buffy saw that Giles was no longer standing in the doorway. There was an emptiness there, filled with sunlight she couldn't go in, a doorway to a house she couldn't go in.

Then he appeared again, shadowed against that light. Carrying a cross.

Thank god he didn't hold it out in front of him. He at least had the decency to tuck it in the waistband at the back of his pants.

Dawn and Xander filled the doorway behind him, blocking out the light completely. Buffy watched them from the shadows, her face fully gone now.

"Buffy?" Giles' voice was tentative, not knowing what response he would get. "Buffy, we need you to calm down."

"It's okay, Buff, we know you're frustrated—"

She wanted to scream back at all of them, but what came out was more a choked sob. "I'm supposed to be out there! My friends are in trouble and I'm supposed to be there! What good am I in here? What kind of slayer am I?"

"It's okay, Faith's got it covered for you..." Dawn was trying to help.

"But Faith's in trouble...her molecules...you said..."

"Buffy, you have to trust that Faith can handle this." Giles had slowly come down the stairs towards her. "I believe she can."

The blonde slayer almost growled. "I didn't say she couldn't! I'm saying that I should be there with her!"

"Buffy, I know that you've become...attached to Faith recently—"

"Giles." Her voice was a low warning. She was still quivering in the dark.

He tried to push on. "...but perhaps, given the strength of these new emotions, she's not the best influence—"

This time it was Xander who cut him off. "But Faith knows Tai Chi, which is just cool, and she was teaching it to Buff."

Giles sighed back at Xander. "And in normal times I would say that was a wonderful development, Xander, but, at this point..." He turned back towards the blonde still across the room from him, hands fisted at her sides. "Being a slayer requires discipline, now even more so, that you're controlling another demon within as well. And Faith is..."

Defiant. "Faith's what? What is she?"

Giles' eyes pleaded with his charge. "Buffy, you nearly killed Willow trying to defend her. I just think..."

The blonde stalked over to the manacle, still dangling from the wall over where the cot used to be. She yanked it up, holding it out, taut on its chain, placing her slender wrist next to it. "So, what, are you gonna chain me again? Is that what you want?"

"Giles, we can't...she's not an animal!" Dawn's gaze shifted back and forth between the Englishman and the livid blonde.

Giles was quiet for a moment, watching Buffy watching him, and wanted desperately to believe. "No, she's not." Then slumping his shoulders. "I'll try to prepare a training regimen." And with that, he left, dragging a reluctant Xander to help him, leaving Buffy standing, holding the iron cuff in her hand, looking down at it.

From across the room, Dawn saw her sister's face start to crumple, and ran to catch her as she collapsed, crying, to the hard floor.

* * *

Faith's eyes would have been gleaming, if anyone could see them, as she walked into the arcade. She slipped past the lazy college student charging admission. She threaded her way through the crowd, mostly teenage boys playing at a world she lived every day. Not to mention they hadn't seen anything like her in the flesh. She grinned at that one as she made for the isolated back room, the air hockey table in the corner.

Willow and Tara were there, standing awkwardly next to the wall. She could just make out that their hands were fastened behind them with duct tape. They were conspicuously alone.

"Red!" She hissed. In the bright light, the bruise on one side of the redhead's jaw jumped out at you. Faith started to reassess the geek squad. "Did they do that to you?"

Willow's head darted from side to side, trying to find Faith. "Do what—oh, the bruise! No that was you."

"Oh, right." She remembered. She wasn't going to say she was sorry. "So where're these—ow!" Somebody kicked the hell out of her shin. "What the fuck!?"

From off to her right. "I got her!"

"Oh jesus, are they invisible, too?" Yeah, this was just getting better and better.

From the other side. "Is that Buffy? Is she invisible?"

Back to the right. "That's not fair! That's _our_ secret weapon. Make her uninvisible, Warren!"

Then a little behind her. "That didn't sound like the slayer. More husky, you know. Like that woman on Farscape."

Tara and Willow looked like they were watching a tennis match, trying to follow the voices. The blonde witch helped her out. "They've got some sort of gun, Faith—"

"A gun?" The dark slayer fell into a defensive crouch, which was sort of silly when nobody could see you, but it made her feel better.

"Faith?" and "Who's Faith?"

"Not a gun, gun. An invisibility gun. We saw the plans. And we would've gotten away with them if Tara hadn't stopped me from—"

"Will, you promised Giles!"

Faith suddenly had the feeling she'd walked in on the middle of an argument. "Red, the last thing we need is some hocus-pocus in the middle of this—" She could see the redhead building up a good glare.

"But I could make them visible—"

"We haven't prepared, Will—"

"Tara, what good is it if it's never the right time?"

"Hocus pocus? Jonathan, you said she was a computer nerd, not a witch!"

"And I thought you said there was only one slayer!"

Faith rolled her eyes. "I get that a lot." She experimented with a quick punch to her left, grinning as it hit solid flesh. Somebody went flying into the pinball machine. A few patrons looked their way, then went back to their games.

The broken machine spoke up, weakly. "Well, I'm thinking pretty super anyway, whoever she is."

"Ass-wipe over there's on the right track, and I know you guys don't really want to have a 'showdown' or whatever so why don't—"

She didn't get the whole thing out before she was struck by a beam of light that knocked her back into the wall with a groan. She sunk to one knee, hand on her head.

"Faith! You're visible!" Tara yelled the obvious across the room. Faith looked down at herself and saw herself. And was now a target. One of the paddles from the air hockey table came flying in her direction. She ducked it easily.

"You've gotta be kiddin' me! You're gonna throw things now? Why don't you just let the girls—"

"I don't think you're clear on the concept of hostages here. You haven't given us what we want." The voice deeper than the others, some ten feet away, other side of the table, but moving. Faith squinted in the din of video games to pick out the scrape of shoes. It was hard to be sure.

"Oh, yeah." She raised an eyebrow, staying on guard for more flying gaming implements. "What's that?"

"Buffy."

"Well, big surprise, that's what everyone wants. Ain't happenin'..." Without warning, she leapt out, catching a rather doughy guy around the middle and flinging him across the table, hearing him give a high-pitched yelp as he hit ground on the other side. She heard someone else scuffling out of the way.

"Hey, we're her nemesises." "Nemesi." "No, I think its nemesises."

"Oh give me a break!" Willow could hardly contain her eyeroll. She glanced over at Faith, explaining. "They're just some guys we went to school with. And you, Jonathan," She looked around, not quite sure where he was. "you gave Buffy the Class Protector award, for crying out loud! Now you're her nemesis?"

"We have powers you can't dream of!"

"Yeah, well, gold star in science doesn't mean—" Faith interrupted herself, leaping out as she heard a shoe scraping across the tile, catching another invisible body and sending it flying into the balls with a girly scream.

Another voice from a little ways away. "Give a message to Buffy from us."

"Do I look like a singing telegram to you?" The brunette leveled her best bored glare in the vicinity of the remaining two voices, trying to keep an eye on the movement in the balls behind her.

The voices ignored her. "Tell her, we will meet again." "No, that's cheesy." "And we haven't technically all met together for the first time." "Just tell her to watch her back—there's a new power in town."

"This is just stupid—"

"I have a knife, and I'm going to throw it at one of the girls if you don't—"

That got Faith's attention. The slayer sensing a threat.

From the vicinity of the balls. "You brought a knife?"

"Hush! This is how they do it." As if he was impatiently explaining to a child, quickly, under his breath. "They use the hero's goodness against him by threatening an innocent so that he has to save the day and the bad guys get away."

Faith lunged across, clumsily catching the speaker in her grip, fumbling as she reached to try to find a knife and couldn't. "Where is it?" She growled into his ear, holding her arm across his throat.

Only to feel a knife pressed into her own, pushing her chin up and back as its blade made a thin red line. She froze, reflexively letting go of the other guy. The deeper voice came from behind her. "He may not have one, but I do." He jerked the weapon a little, and Tara cried out. Faith could see Willow starting to chant underneath her breath.

"Warren! You didn't say anything about—" This from the high-pitched voice that first claimed a knife.

"Red, no spells! I'm in the fuckin' line of fire here!"

Faith felt a little shift behind her as she was placed more in between Willow and her attacker. "You heard what the bitch said, Willow. No spells. No spells, or I cut this one's throat." He pressed the blade deeper and Faith could feel the trickle of blood running down her neck. Willow opened her eyes again, narrowly, refusing to look at Tara beside her, glaring instead at the space behind Faith. Warren continued. "That's right. Just ease off. What we want is Buffy." He started to trail the knife down Faith's neck towards the "v" of her shirt. "So you can just tell that little blonde bitch—"

He never got to finish before Faith had whirled and, with slayer speed, reversed positions with Warren, the knife now at his throat, pressing in, eyes wild with the thrill of life and death. She pressed in, eyes fixated on the seeming nothingness in between the knife and her. Like cutting through nothing.

"Faith, no!"

Tara's words jarred her and she looked up, startled, then back down to the knife, the invisible person it held in place and felt it all rushing back. The deputy mayor, the stake plunging in, heat of the moment, his blood, his eyes looking at her.

The knife clattered to the floor as she raised one hand to her head, the other leaning out to steady her on the air hockey table. Her lips moved soundlessly as she stared into the past.

Until she felt the searing pain of the knife when it plunged into her shoulder at the joint. Faith cried out, feeling the blood and the grate of torn cartilage, hearing the whispered "c'mon!" as the invisible trio disappeared into the night. She sunk to the floor, dimly aware of Willow and Tara yelling as she grabbed at the hilt to pull out the blade.


	30. Chapter 30

A/N: Thanks so much for all the reviews on the last chapter...they kept me going on this one! Maybe I'll be so lucky a second time...

* * *

Soon after the sun set, Buffy came running down the hall of the hospital, her hair a mane framing red-rimmed eyes, her knee-length black coat flaring out behind her. Like some sort of Nordic angel of death. She skidded to a stop in front of Willow and Tara, who were standing a little apart, not speaking, outside one room. She looked them quickly up and down.

"Thank god you're both okay!"

Tara reached out to grab her arm, steadying the wild girl. "We're fine, but Faith..."

"Faith!" Buffy's eyes were wide and she rushed past the two girls into the room, straight for the hospital bed, capturing a surprised Faith in a frantic kiss.

"B?" She said the letter, but it really came out closer to the letter "m," muffled as it was by Buffy's mouth. Buffy pulled away, feeling the other girl not responding to her kiss. Her brows came together in confusion.

"Faith? Are you—" The blonde slayer caught sight of the bandage around the other slayer's shoulder, spotted red. She saw the thin line of dried blood on her neck. She couldn't look away. "Oh god, who did this?" That last was hoarse. She felt her mouth going dry.

Faith could see Buffy tensing, fingertips white where they pressed into her hand. "Some guys Red said you knew...three of 'em. You'll have to ask her for the names." She shrugged, turning her face away.

"People? Not demons? But how—?"

Faith snapped back, not looking at her. "'Cause I freaked, alright? I freaked and almost killed one of 'em and luckily Tara pulled me outta it before...you know." She looked away, glaring at the television muted in the corner. "Anyway, let my fuckin' guard down and got skewered."

"Oh Faith." Buffy interlaced her fingers with the other girl, forcing herself to focus on those entwined appendages and not the frayed edge of the bandage, the biting, metallic smell of what it covered. "I'm sure it wasn't..." She broke off, seeing the other girl shaking her head. "We'll talk about it...we'll get you home and—"

"Can't."

"What do you mean 'can't'?" Her voice picked up a thread of hysteria. She _needed_ to get out of that place! They both did. "You don't like hospitals and I _hate_ them..." Her voice tripped over itself.

"Had to say this was all self-inflicted or they'd have called the cops." Faith looked for understanding in Buffy's eyes, but found them unfocused, dark green. "You know...prison escapee? Ringin' any bells for ya?"

Buffy shook her head as if to clear it, murmuring. "Right..."

"Right. So now I've gotta stay overnight for some psycho eval or somethin'."

"I think it's called a psychological evaluation." Giles walked in, trailing Xander, Anya, Dawn, Willow, and Tara. From the coffee cup he was carrying, he looked to have just returned from a trip to the cafeteria. Xander and Anya had picked up a few sandwiches. Giles looked over at the patient, taking in the agitated blonde next to her, picking at the sheet, eyes darting between all the newcomers. "And you're not 'psycho,' Faith."

"Sure, Jeeves." The dark slayer's mouth was still a hard line.

"He had just tried to kill you." Tara laid a hand on Faith's arm. The dark slayer looked down at it, surprised at the touch.

From across the room, Buffy's voice was lost in the middle of it all as she stared at the blood that cut across Faith's neck. "Nearly killed you..." Dawn moved over next to her sister, reaching out to pull her in a half-embrace. She felt Buffy tense like a whip against her.

Everyone else had their eyes on Faith. "You're not crazy." Giles was earnest. They weren't going to make these mistakes again. "In your line, the heat of the battle is intense. Your actions were not unusual..." He trailed off, seeing that she was no longer listening to him.

Anya stepped into that silence. "And you can't be crazy now. I need you as a bridesmaid."

Faith's eyes snapped up to meet the former vengeance demon's. "I _know_ I just misunderstood you there."

Anya just looked back like it was a done deal, sitting on the edge of the bed. "We tried to get the church service pushed back to accommodate Buffy's problem with sunlight." She sighed. "We thought we had it, but apparently some old people get fed there on Saturday nights, and then there's Buffy's latest penchant for destroying furniture..." She glanced over at the blonde where she had retreated to the window.

"Huh?" Buffy snapped her eyes from Faith's shoulder and met Anya's. She tried to recover herself, but could feel Tara watching her with concern. "Well, at least something good might come of all this." She pasted a sarcastic grin on her face.

"Good?" Anya's voice was shrill. "How can this be good? We don't even know yet if your dress will fit Faith."

"Now wait just one goddamned minute! I never said I would be a bridesmaid—in fact, I said the _exact_ opposite!"

Xander could see this was about to blow up in his face. He glanced quickly at Buffy, but found her gripping the windowsill, staring out into the dark. So he turned to Faith, pleading. "Faith, please—"

Tara tried to help. "It might not be that bad."

Willow rolled her eyes. Faith caught it.

"Well, I sure as hell am not wearing any fuckin' dress!"

"Didn't you say there was a blood larva option, Anya?" Dawn's eyes twinkled as she caught the mock glare from Faith.

"You'll do it!" Anya looked as though she might cry.

"On my terms, dress-wise." Faith blurted, throwing her hands out in front of her, then frowned as she realized she had just admitted defeat.

"You'll do it! You'll be a part of my special day!" Then Faith was engulfed by Xander's fiancé in a fit of gratitude and curly blonde hair. And she had no choice in the matter, as the babble of wedding planning started up between Anya and Xander at her side and, behind them, Faith saw a pale Buffy excuse herself and make her way quickly to the door.

* * *

Buffy staggered a little down the hallway, reaching a hand out to steady herself against the wall. She felt her peripheral vision go as the world shrunk to a tunnel in front of her. A long, white-tiled tunnel. A flash of the blood at Faith's neck.

No!

White tile, hospital orderlies, bright lights. The intoxicating smell of blood. Everywhere! Her tongue pulling back, startled, from her fangs as they sharpened themselves at the thought.

No!

White tile, white tile, white tile. She ducked into an alcove, balling her fists at her side.

And then she saw a suspiciously familiar figure glide by in the hallway and slip through a door a little way down. She furrowed her brow, looked to see if anyone had come out of Faith's room, and then scurried after.

She found Spike rummaging in the refrigerator there, pulling out packets of blood.

"Spike! What are you—" She stopped as he turned towards her, looking like someone who'd just walked away from a nuclear blast. "What the hell happened to you?"

"Talk to the little redhead."

"Willow? But—" Buffy stopped as Spike tore off the tip of one of the packets, pouring it down his throat. She could smell the faint, slightly sterile tang of it. Buffy walked over to jerk his shoulder back, intending to grab the packets from his hands and throw them back in the fridge. "Hey! You can't do that! That's for accident victims!"

Spike looked down at her for a moment, shoved a few packets at her, then moved around her as if to go. The blonde slayer looked down at the blood in her hands. Human blood. She felt her knees go weak as she stared at it.

"You want it, don't you, love?"

She frowned, realizing he was still there in the room. Through gritted teeth. "You know I do."

She'd hardly gotten the sentence out when Spike leaned his head out the door into the hallway, shouting: "Security! She's trying to steal from the blood supply in here!"

Buffy's eyes went wide as she looked from the packets in her hand to the door. "What are you—?"

But she didn't have time to get it out completely before a large officer stormed into the room. Spike slid behind him, closing the door quietly. He looked around to meet Buffy's eyes, shrugging to say that she could go to jail if she wanted, and pray for a cell without sun exposure. Or she could take care of the officer and take what she wanted. Buffy's mouth was open in shock as she looked from the packets in her hands to the officer yelling at her to put them down. And she saw his hand starting to go for the gun at his hip and, before she knew it, she had leapt at him and sent the gun skittering away across the floor and him crashing to the floor, with her on top of him, and his eyes wide, his mouth making the shape of "what are you?" and the fear in the blood pulsing in his neck that she couldn't take her eyes off of.

But she forced herself to, ripping her eyes away and stumbling to the side, reaching back for some of those packets behind her only to be kicked in the jaw by a jack-booted Spike. She fell back into some metal shelves, then picked herself up, took one look at the blood behind Spike and another at the guard still cowering on the floor. And she ran.

* * *

In the hallway, she nearly collided with Tara.

"Buffy! I was just looking for—" She broke off, taking in the crazed girl, the bruise blossoming on her jaw. "Are you...what happened?"

"Spike—"

Willow appeared out of nowhere. "Where's Spike? What did he do?" Tara glared over at her as she reached out a hand to steady the blonde slayer.

Buffy shook her head, trying to focus on what was being said to her and not the lingering smell of blood that pervaded the hospital. "Spike? It's not...I just...I need to get out—"

But Willow could tell the other girl wasn't saying everything, so she pushed in with her mind to find out, to pull out the sensations the other girl was hiding. At the force of it, Buffy groaned, putting her hands to her head.

The redhead saw Spike, the packets of blood, the boot coming at Buffy's face and felt the anger rising in her. How dare he hurt her, after the warning she'd given him! Tara's eyes darted between Buffy and Willow until she closed her eyes, reaching a little with her own mind and felt the thread running between the two of them.

Buffy staggered a little. "Will, is that...please...oh god..." The slayer could feel her fangs extending.

"Willow, no! You can't do that to Buffy!"

"Can't do what to B?" Faith appeared suddenly at her elbow. One glance at Buffy and she whirled on Willow. "What the fuck are you doing!?"

But Willow had her eyes on Buffy still, on those fangs extending and the thread of control that she could feel the other girl losing from inside her mind. So she reached out and touched Buffy lightly on the cheek, stepping in to catch her as she collapsed, unconscious in the redhead's arms.

"No! B!"

"Willow!"

Willow looked over at them, her eyes clearing, wanting the others to see. "She was losing it, and what Spike keeps trying to do to her...I had to." She was having trouble holding Buffy up. Faith tried to move in, but cried out in pain at her shoulder as she tried to reach out. Thankfully, Xander swooped in between them, gathering up the pale beauty in his arms as Giles whispered to get her out of the hallway before someone noticed.

And as soon as Buffy was no longer in between them, Faith lunged forward with her good arm, locking Willow back against the wall by the throat. "I swear to god, if you hurt her...!" She wasn't letting go, her eyes wild and black, her hand squeezing.

Someone cleared their throat and everyone's head swiveled towards the sound. The dark slayer froze.

"Faith?" A blonde in her late twenties stood with a clipboard, eyes flickering from Faith's face to the hand at Willow's throat.

"Do I know you?"

"I was sent to do a psych evaluation..." She knit her brows, looking down at her clipboard again. "Do I have this right...I thought...it says here there was a concern about _self_-inflicted wounds?" Her eyes looked up inquiringly at Faith hand.

Willow glared back at Faith. "Faith has lots of issues."

Reluctantly Faith let go, feeling the stranger's eyes on her and the not-so-subtle motion that she should follow her and her clipboard somewhere where they could "talk."

"Oh, fuck me."


	31. Chapter 31

A/N: Really desperate for reviews on this one!

* * *

Tara waited until Faith and the woman were just out of earshot before she whirled on Willow. "How could you!?"

The redhead was rubbing her neck. Where Faith's hand had been was still visible against her pale skin. She looked up at her girlfriend, hurt. "Tara, you don't know what Spike has tried to do to Buffy and its really bad and she's not telling anyone. We can't just let him hurt her!"

Giles knit his brow at that one, filing it away to ask later.

Tara went on, tears in her eyes. "Will, you can't just mess with people's minds like that without their permission! You've done it to me, you've done it to all of us already...couldn't you see how that hurt us?"

"But—"

Giles cut in. "You were in Buffy's mind? How on earth—"

Willow turned to him. "It's kind of amazing, Giles, but it's not hard!" There was a gleam in her eye. "You just have to sort of stretch your mind out a little and find the other person's, sort of like opening a book and flipping through the pages—"

"Will, that didn't look right." Xander emerged from the room again, having left Dawn with Buffy. "She looked...I dunno, like she was going crazy or something. And now she's all restless in there." He jerked his thumb back in the direction of the bed.

"That's because Willow just forced her way in, without asking or anything!"

Xander looked from Tara then back to his old friend. "Will, that was Buffy! Our Buffy"

"No! You guys didn't see it! Buffy was losing control of her vampire again because of Spike and, with you here, Tara, I couldn't let that happen so I had to do something. I did it for you, baby!" Willow reached out a hand to brush across Tara's cheek, willing her to remember how she'd had to find Buffy at her throat once before. But Tara stepped back, out of her reach.

"The means don't justify the end. That's not what magic is for." Now the tears were flowing down Tara's cheeks. "I can't be with someone who does that."

Willow's face cratered as she opened her mouth to say something, anything! Tara couldn't leave!

But Giles broke in between the two of them. "Wait, I don't understand. Willow, you were in Buffy's mind. But then, how did she end up unconscious?"

The redhead reluctantly turned away from Tara to answer him. "I had to, Giles. I was in there, I could see she was losing control, so I knocked her out." Seeing the alarm in his eyes, she rushed on. "It's just temporary. And I don't think she's really out out, like deep...all the forces inside her are so strong, but I had to do something before she lost it!"

Giles sighed, trying to keep his voice calm. "Willow, we'll have to discuss this later. I need to see to Buffy and wait for Faith—"

"I can be—"

"No, Willow." He said it gently, not wanting to inflame an already emotional situation. "I think it would be best if you waited at the house. And I stand by my earlier statement...I think it would be best to hold off on the magic for now until we reinforce your discipline and control. The magics you're using are potent ones, and ones that could easily get out of hand. We want to make sure that doesn't happen." He turned to the young man at his side. "Xander, maybe you could—?"

"Sure thing, G-man."

Willow looked over at Tara to see whether she would come, but she had already turned away to go into the room. Willow's shoulders sank a little at that. Watching her and Xander go with Anya trailing behind, Giles thought it would probably be a quiet car ride home. Unless Anya spoke up, that is.

* * *

"So, Faith, tell me a little bit about how these injuries came about." With a hand, the young woman waved in the general direction of Faith's shoulder and neck.

"Um..." For somebody who was usually pretty good at lying, the dark slayer found herself stumbling over her words. Likely because she was still seeing red, literally, about Willow. Still seeing Buffy's hands holding her head as she suffered under whatever spell Willow was casting. Buffy slumping down, unconscious, in Willow's arms. And Willow right in the middle of it, doing that to Buffy. She forced herself to unclench her hands.

The woman tried to prompt her. "The report says you cut yourself and...stabbed yourself? Why did you stab yourself?" She looked up at Faith's injury, brow furrowing. "Why did you stab yourself in the shoulder, in particular?"

Faith snapped to the present, looking over at her shoulder, feeling the sharp twinge as she shifted. "Well, you know, I just, um..." She mimed taking a knife and plunging it in her shoulder. And then realized that she looked absolutely stupid doing so. Maybe she shouldn't have said self-inflicted.

"I think I'm clear on the mechanics of _how_ it would be done, Faith. What I'm trying to understand is _why_." She looked at Faith for a moment. "Were you trying to kill yourself..." She looked skeptical at that. "...or hurt yourself, maybe?"

"Yeah?" Then Faith thought she wasn't trying to end up in an institution for the rest of her life. "I mean, the second...the 'hurt' one."

"So you stabbed yourself in the shoulder to hurt yourself?" Faith wondered why all these psychobabble folks were always repeating everything you said. Same as it had been in prison when she'd done her round of these folks there. She tried to force herself to pay attention to what she was being asked. "I have to say, the shoulder is a sort of...unlikely target."

"Thought it wouldn't hurt as much." She ventured, then realized she'd just said she did it _to_ hurt herself. "You know, relatively. Wanted some pain, but not too much." God, she sounded lame!

The psychologist appeared to have several questions she wanted to ask, and opened her mouth several times before settling on one. "Let's start, then, with why you wanted to cause yourself _some_ pain."

"You know, life sucks. The usual." How did people pay good money to go talk like this couple times a week?

"And how does your life suck?"

At the patronizing tone, Faith had an almost overpowering urge to flip the other woman off, storm out of the office, and go find Buffy. Instead: "Um..." How do you even explain that to someone who doesn't get it? Who can't get it? Luckily, the woman was willing to jump to her own conclusions.

"Did all of this have something to do with that...argument you were having with the girl in the hallway?"

"Red?" Faith could feel herself start to seethe just at the thought of it.

The woman noted the clenched jaw on her clipboard. "The redhead, yes. The one you had your...um, the one you were holding by the throat. What were the two of you arguing about? I heard you say something...what was it...I think it was 'if you hurt her.' Were you arguing about another girl?"

"Another girl, yeah." As if that covered it!

"Tell me something about this other girl."

"B? What's to say? She's B."

The woman studied Faith for a moment, then looked down at her clipboard, then back up to meet those dark brown eyes. "Faith, are you in a relationship with this 'B'?"

Faith sniffed at that. "Not really sure. I guess, maybe...I don't know."

The other woman sat back a little, writing some on her clipboard. Then she looked up again, earnestly. "Faith, are you feeling conflicted about your relationship with B? Are you conflicted about liking another girl?"

Faith cleared her throat to keep from laughing. Lots of issues around the blonde slayer, but the fact that she was a girl...not really one of them. In her mind's eye she could still see Buffy's naked body laid out beneath her on that basement cot. Nope, pretty much okay with the girlie parts. But Faith saw an opening and hoped the woman across from her was maybe more Midwestern than Californian. "Yeah, that's it. Freaked out about B bein' all, you know, same-sex."

"It's okay, Faith...this is not unusual...there's nothing unnatural about your feelings for 'B.'"

Except that she's a vampire and Faith's a slayer. Except that Faith had once tried to kill Buffy and vice versa. "Sure, except things always get complicated between the two of us."

"You've tried a relationship with her before?"

Faith frowned, not really wanting to go there. "Yeah, B just about killed me." She saw the other woman's eyebrows go up, so she hurried on. "Figuratively, I mean. You know, with the..." Faith struggled to imagine a word the psychologist would like. "...with all the angst." God, somebody get her out of there!

The woman looked at her again for a minute, considering. "Have you gotten in fights about 'B' in the past?"

"Oh yeah." Faith answered without thinking, her brow furrowing as she remembered her most recent fight in the arcade. That invisible voice calling Buffy "a little bitch," putting a knife to her throat, the heat of the fight, the invisible neck with the knife she was pressing hard into it.

"Would you consider yourself a violent person, Faith?"

The question jerked her from her thoughts. "What the fuck does that have to do with anything?"

The woman watched her carefully, watched the arms folded tight across Faith's chest, the fists they hid. Voice carefully—and annoyingly—modulated to soothe. "Faith, these things you claim you've done to yourself, surely you'll agree they're acts of violence."

"Yeah, but—" She managed to stop herself before she said that she hadn't been the one who had done it. "Okay, whatever you say." It was true after all wasn't it? She _was_ violent. Just not for the reasons the woman thought.

"And then I see you fighting in the hall."

Faith sputtered. "Yeah, but that was totally—!"

The other woman supplied a word. "Justified?"

"Yeah!" She blurted it out before she thought. Then tried to correct. "No! I mean, it wasn't, and I shouldn't have but you don't know the whole story..." She stopped because she didn't want to—and couldn't—tell it anyway. The other woman seemed not to notice she trailed off, and instead was busy anyway writing this latest gem down on her little clipboard, probably checking that box that said Faith was certifiable and ought to be committed to an institution immediately and maybe that's where she ought to be, given what she'd almost done to that guy. Still losing control. Still a killer, no matter how hard she tried to pretend.

Another woman in scrubs popped her head into the office. "Got another one for you doctor."

"Right now?"

"Sorry." And scrub woman was gone, and the interview was over, suddenly, as the psychologist rose.

Faith jumped startled to her feet. "That's it?" This was totally not the way she wanted to leave this.

"I'm sorry, I would've liked to have talked further..." She waved a frustrated hand in the direction the other woman had left in.

"But I..." Faith stopped because she didn't know what to say.

"I'll be discussing my evaluation with your doctor and we'll go from there. It'll probably be morning."

Fuck. That didn't sound good.

* * *

Faith was escorted back to her room, silent in her own dark thoughts. She found Dawn there, watching Buffy. She jumped up when Faith walked in, looking worriedly between the two slayers. Giles stirred from his nap in the corner.

"Faith!" Dawn's whisper was loud in the dim room. The blonde stirred on the bed, murmuring in restless sleep, her hair fanned out across the bed. Her jacket and shoes lay over near the window. Buffy's bare feet twitched a little as Faith watched. As Dawn grabbed her by the arm, Faith bit back the pain in her shoulder.

Faith asked the question. "How is...?"

"Willow said she just knocked her out, but..." They could both look down and see Buffy still fighting in her sleep.

"Goddamn Red!" It was practically a hiss.

"She's been like this since you left." Dawn stared down at her sister. Faith stared at the same pale girl. "Faith, you've got to do something!" At that, the dark slayer's eyes jerked back to meet Dawn's, but, instead of catching her eyes, Faith was startled to find herself wrapped up in a big hug. She gritted her teeth against the pain of the other girl's tight embrace, but didn't stop her. Instead, she looked over the younger Summers' head, meeting Giles' eyes.

The Englishman looked back, asking with his eyes if she was alright. She gave a curt nod, trying not to think of the disastrous interview she'd just finished. He then spoke to Dawn. "There may be little we can do until she wakes. And then, it will be up to all of us..." Here he looked up at Faith. "...to help her regain her control. In the meantime, Dawn, we should get you home for some rest. Faith, will you be able to...before morning...?"

Faith nodded again and felt the young girl unwrap herself as the two of them left her alone with Buffy.

In the dim, quiet room, Faith wondered how long it would be before they came to tell her she was crazy, violent, a menace that needed to be taken off the streets. How long it would be before they sent her back to jail, where she belonged.

Looking at Buffy, she knew she'd managed to fuck it up again.

The blonde slayer murmured in her sleep, lips parted slightly to reveal her fangs. Faith laid down next to her, watching as she curled into Faith's side. The dark slayer closed her eyes at the rightness of that pressure, hearing a groan building in her throat. And it was so tempting to keep the eyes closed to everything else when there was this girl here who needed her and who she needed in turn for as long as she could have her. And she felt her mouth reaching for the other girl's, capturing it in a kiss that was first her own until Buffy returned it, in the haze of just waking, and the kiss grew frenzied and Faith felt the prick as fangs got in the way and drew blood and she just kept holding Buffy to her, while the kiss deepened, tasting iron blood in her mouth, which blended together with Buffy's mouth. She heard the other slayer whimper at the kiss.

Faith prayed, at least, that they would give her this time with Buffy. This kiss. She felt tears on her cheeks, clasping her lover to her, feeling her deepen the kiss, feeling this girl who _needed_ her. And she tipped up her chin, baring her neck, moving Buffy's mouth down to her neck, where Buffy's teeth found what they needed—the jugular running along there—and latched on and drank and drank what she'd been wanting.

Until, with a cry, Buffy jerked herself away, stumbling back off the bed. Her lips were red, her eyes wide. "Faith, no...oh god..." It was almost a whisper. "I didn't want to hurt..."

And then the blonde ran from the room. Faith could hear her bare feet slapping softly against the hospital tile and turned, curled on her side, figuring that was the last she'd see of her.

* * *

In another part of the hospital, a doctor looked wearily over a stack of psych evaluations, trying through the fog of his exhaustion to remember and distinguish each patient. Towards the end of that stack, he came across the evaluation for Faith, glancing quickly. Seeing the words "tumultuous lesbian love triangle," he smirked, making a mental note to take another look at his patient in the morning before she left. He remembered this one, the dark beauty with the nasty stab wound. Scanning further, he looked for and found the words "clearly not self-inflicted" and sighed, happy to put any concerns of suicidal tendencies at rest so easily. He flipped past the rest of the report, tossing itover into the completed pile as he scrawled a note to the charge nurse that Faith could be discharged after a last preventative round of antibiotics in the morning. Yawning, he tripped off to catch a few hours of sleep and left the hospital to its humming nighttime thoughts.


	32. Chapter 32

A/N: Absolutely indebted to you for any feedback!

* * *

When Giles placed a hand on Faith's arm to wake her the next morning, she sprang up at the touch, swinging out and almost clocking the Englishman in what proved to be a painful endeavor, given her wounded shoulder.

"Faith!" The backpedaling watcher had his hands out in front of him in defense. "Good lord...it's just me!"

Faith shrunk back, shaking her head and grabbing her shoulder. She swore she could feel the jagged edges of cartilage rubbing together. Possibly with a nerve in between them. She gave a short "motherfucker!" under her breath and sucked in the pain.

"Sorry. Don't much like bein' touched when I'm sleeping." She ran a hand back through her brown mane, taming it somewhat. The shadows under her eyes were dark against the pale of her cheek.

Giles still had a hand on his chest, steadying his breathing. "Duly noted." He stopped to take a good look at her and froze as he saw the bite mark at her throat. A fresh one. "Faith, did Buffy...?" The knot in his chest kept him from finishing the thought.

"Yeah, it was B, but I made her do it. Don't blame her."

He wasn't quite sure whether to be relieved. "You'd rather I blame you?" He sighed. Of course she did. The dark slayer didn't say anything, and kept picking at her bandage instead of facing him. "I'm not going to say it wasn't stunningly poor judgment on your part, but I'm sure you had reasons that seemed—"

"They're gonna lock me up again."

A pause. "Well, perhaps I'd hoped for a better reason than—"

"It's not a reason...I'm just fuckin' sayin' that I flunked the psych eval thing and they're gonna lock me up again so what the hell does it matter anyway?"

"Faith, I'm sure it's not the sort of thing you can 'flunk'...they just wanted to make sure you weren't suicidal, given the story you had to give about your wounds."

"More like homicidal."

"Faith. Faith!" His voice rose sharply the second time he said it, trying to raise her eyes from the floor to meet his. "You are _not_ a killer. What may have happened at one time is in the past...you bore part of the blame, yes, but it wasn't yours alone. And you've done your time for it."

"You mean ran away from my time...apparently a few therapy sessions too soon—"

"Angel broke you out of there because he thought you were ready, and because the world needed you. And what have you done since? You've managed to help Buffy, whom you would have previously attacked on sight. You've saved Tara and Willow from Buffy, you've rescued Dawn, you've slayed.... Those don't sound to me like the actions of a homicidal lunatic."

"You didn't see me with that guy...I almost slit his throat! A person, Giles."

He didn't give any ground. "A person who had just held a knife to your throat, if I have the story correctly. And you're concerned about it, which shows an improvement over last time."

Those brown eyes glared right back at him, dark in their depths. "Sure and how many more times is this gonna happen? How many more people am I gonna put in danger?"

He sighed. "Faith, do you think this hasn't happened before? The nature of being a slayer is to walk that line between violence and heroism. Do you think Buffy hasn't crossed it?" Giles could feel the dark slayer looking at him as he looked out the window. "Buffy once killed her mother's boyfriend. She got in a fight with him and threw him down the stairs. He later turned out to be a robot, but the point is, she didn't know that when she killed him the first time." He looked over, meeting her eyes. "She was devastated, Faith, at what she'd done. She knew she was responsible for her slayer strength. But she didn't let it destroy her. She talked about it."

"Not so good with the touchy-feely stuff, G-man."

He stopped himself from rolling his eyes. "Young lady, that is an understatement." Faith had the grace to give him a half-smile in acknowledgement of just how right he was. He went on. "But you're not alone in that either. Your sister slayer, as voluble as she is on other occasions, can be about as uncommunicative with you. In fact, between the two of you, you manufacture more conflicts than any two people I've seen." He sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose. "Which is what I tried to tell her."

That peaked Faith's interest. "Tried to tell her when?"

"After you left for the arcade." He sat down on the bed next to Faith, looking out the window. "I tried to say that, given the emotionally trying time for both of you, perhaps now was not the time to venture into a new relationship." He stopped for a moment. Faith filled in the silence with the image of Buffy running away the night before. She had actually managed to finally do what Giles would have thought was best. Let her go. See, this is why no one ever wanted to do what Giles said...because it hurt like hell. She heard him sigh and go on. "And, as you can imagine, she was about as stubborn and as pig-headed about it as you. Wouldn't have anything of it."

"Yeah, well...I did your work for you last night. Ran her off."

"But I thought you...." He paused. "What a minute...what do you mean 'ran her off'?"

"Sorta what it sounds like."

He forced himself to be calm. "Where did she run?"

"Dunno. Away from me...that's all I can say."

"Damn!" The hiss of the word cut into the morning sun as he hurried to the phone by her bedside. "Dawn? Is Buffy...?" Some talking on the other line. Then: "We'll try to locate her." Hanging the receiver in its cradle, he looked over, surprised to see Faith still sitting on the bed, hugging her knees. "Faith, she's not there...we need to find her before something worse happens." He nodded at her neck.

"Then you don't want me...I apparently bring on the worse."

He gritted his teeth and wondered for the millionth time why slayers had to be so damned thick-headed. Maybe it provided extra protection. "Faith, I did not say that, I merely said—"

"B deserves something better than a long-distance relationship with Faith the felon, Giles, or Faith the crazed psychopath...take your pick." The slayer's face was angry and tight, her dark hair coming down to frame its pallor.

"What on earth are you talking about? No one has said.... Faith, you've been discharged. I talked to the nurse right before I came in here this morning."

"I've been what!?"

"I said you've been discharged, so, if you'll kindly finish with your self-flagellating, maybe we can try to find where Buffy ran to."

* * *

When she kicked in the front door of Spike's crypt, the vampire had to scramble to get out of the sunlight that made its way in with the watcher and the slayer. Given the burns he was still nursing from Willow's attack, he had no urge to feel that light again. He tried to look nonchalant. As nonchalant as one could be, pressed back into a dark corner.

"Well, well, what brings in you lot? Comin' to spread the good word, are we?"

Faith wasted no time. "Where's Buffy?"

He looked at her for a moment, a slow grin curling at one side of his mouth. "Tellin', isn't it, that you come here looking for her."

"I said, 'where is she?' If you don't know, just say, and I might not dust you for it."

"Big talk when you need somethin' from me." He made himself more comfortable against the wall, crossing his arms across his chest. "Hmm...Buffy, you say? Have I seen her, have I seen her...?" He could almost hear Faith's growl. "You know, I think I did. Yep, that's right, I did. When she dropped by for a little pre-dawn shag."

He knew she would come at him for that one, so he was prepared to duck out of the way. He hadn't anticipated the choked, enraged scream she would give while she was doing it, though. That threw him, so she almost caught up with him as he danced aside at the last minute. Faith tried to adjust her punch in midair, but, with her shoulder, wasn't quite able to make that change of direction and ended up slamming hard against the wall of the crypt. With her shoulder. She saw stars with that one and had to drop her head between her knees to keep from throwing up.

But before he could take a minute to gloat in her misfire, he found himself hauled up by a hand gripping the front of his black t-shirt.

"Hey, watch it now!"

Giles glared at him from inches away. "You little impotent worm of a man! She would never touch you!" His words were practically a snarl.

Spike shrugged, enjoying the older man's anger. "Ask your rogue why she brought you here, then. Why she thought Buffy'd be here." Giles gritted his teeth, but slid his gaze over to Faith, seeing her straighten up, an angry uncertainty in her eyes. And red blossoming across the white bandage. They didn't have time for this. With a grunt, he threw Spike back against the wall, leaving the vampire to make a big show of smoothing the wrinkles out of his shirt, brushing the dust off. "Think we all know she has bit of a weakness for the undead." He paused to let Angel's unsaid name pop into Giles' head. "Sorry she couldn't hang around for you. More of a quickie really."

Giles' jaw clenched, but he fought to keep his voice even in light of the fury he saw in Faith's eyes. Fury she couldn't do anything about without a stake. "Let's go, Faith. He doesn't know where she is."

Giles tried to tug on Faith's arm for her to follow him, but she was fixed to the floor, staring at the vampire, hands clenching and unclenching as if they could manufacture a weapon out of thin air.

Spike mocked her with a little shoo-ing motion. "When you do see her, please thank her for a lively time."

Giles almost lost Faith then, and only his quick shout of her name brought her up short before she uncoiled her spring to behead Spike with her own bare hands. Faith's name and then Buffy's right after it, reminding the dark slayer why they were there. With one last curl of her lip, she turned on her heel and followed Giles out into the sunlight.

It was far too bright for this.

Faith stomped off in the direction of the next nearest crypt, ripping the door nearly off its hinges as she stuck her head inside and, seeing no one, slammed it shut again. She marched to the next one, Giles following quickly after her.

"Faith." No response. "Faith!" She whirled on him, dark eyes dangerous. "Faith, you can't seriously think we can check every dark place in Sunnydale for her."

Faith's jaw was set. "Watch me." And she turned again to find the next, leaving Giles to catch up again.

"Faith." She stopped at the door of a mausoleum, banging her forehead lightly against the stone. "We can't look this way. We need to have someone look at your shoulder." At Giles' words, the dark slayer looked down at her arm as if it were attached to someone else's body, as if it were betraying her. She'd be damned if she'd let that stop her and she started to pull the door open when Giles went on, more gently this time. "We need a plan, Faith. She could be anywhere." His heart nearly broke when he saw her face crumple as it pressed against that stone, hiding its tears from him. "She didn't have time to leave town, so she's still here, and she can't move again until tonight." Her shoulders were shuddering, but he didn't dare reach out, didn't dare risk she'd run, too. "Faith, we'll find her. Come back to the house. We will figure out a way to find her."

Finally, she relented.

* * *

As the two of them walked away, a figure stirred within that mausoleum, turning in fitful sleep. In the dark, pressed into a dusty corner, the blonde slayer lay curled on hard stone like the vampire she was. With only the dead for company.


	33. Chapter 33

A/N: Thank you again for your feedback and for sticking with me on this one!

On a more personal note (and if you're overloaded with politics or care not to mix your politics with your fanfiction, please skip on to the story), I hope that any of you out there who might happen to live in the sunny state of California will consider voting no on Prop. 8 on Tuesday's ballot. My wife and I have been fortunate to enjoy legal marriage for four months now and would really like to make it a lifetime. Thanks again for reading and I'll get off my soapbox now!

* * *

"Jesus."

The cot was still in the corner where it had been thrown, a tangle of metal and uncomfortably thin mattress. Faith looked down at it.

"Let's just say that Buffy wasn't keen on being left here." The dark slayer spun, not realizing Giles had followed her to the basement. He stood at the top of the stairs, cup of tea in hand, watching her. "I'm sorry, Faith, I didn't mean to startle you. I just wanted to let you know that we have it set for tonight. You, Xander, and I will search for Buffy, while the others will monitor the bus station and port in case...." He trailed off.

Faith let him. She turned back to the destroyed bed. "B the Furniture Slayer." She considered that one for a moment. "Huh. Never figured her for a thrower."

"I wouldn't have called her the sort to punch holes in walls either." Giles waved a hand in the direction of those impressions behind where the cot had been. "In fact...." But here he trailed off.

"Thought that might be more my department?"

The Englishman had the grace to look a little sheepish. "At any rate, we are all having to adjust our expectations."

Faith couldn't deny that. She looked back up at the watcher. "What happens if she, you know, goes all the way vamp?"

"I wish I knew, Faith. Her situation is so unprecedented and she is effectively trying to balance two competing identities—"

"Three."

"Three what?"

"There's three of 'em: the vamp, the slayer, and B herself."

He paused, reevaluating the dark slayer half-shrouded in the shadows of the basement corner. "Yes, you're quite right of course. Three. At any rate, it's unclear whether those three can coexist. The slayer and the girl do—"

"Sometimes."

Another pause. The scholar in him desperately wanted to question her about that, to understand what it meant to have this Other inside—the same Other his Council had always focused on to the exclusion of all else, to the exclusion of the girl who was, in their mind just a vessel for that warrior. But he knew Faith would not have the patience for his questions. "You would know better than I."

Behind Giles, the doorway fell into shadow as Xander peeked his head around. "Faith? Ready?"

The slayer looked, confused, over at Giles. "Ready for...?"

"I'm sorry. I forgot to say that Xander wondered whether you would help him find another bed for Buffy. Perhaps something a bit more permanent this time. Heavier." He gave her a small smile.

One corner of her mouth tipped up in response. "You want me to get a bed for B? Now there's somethin' I never thought I'd hear."

The young man smiled, acknowledging the ways in which their relationship had changed. "Well, I was thinking more of using you for your muscle."

"Oh. Always good for that." She took a look back at the tangled wreck. "If you were gonna ask me to help with the shopping, it coulda gotten ugly. I don't know the first thing about canopies and what I know about headboards ain't the sorta thing you talk to a salesman about, if you know what I mean."

Xander's eyes went wide as he stared at the brunette, dangerously beautiful in her leather, a dark mane framing her face. He was glad Anya wasn't down here. "I'll just pretend that wasn't an allusion to kinky sex games." He cleared his throat. "I think we'll keep it pretty simple...no canopies, I promise."

"Simple is good." Faith paused, looking thoughtful. "And in return for my services, you can help me find somethin' to wear to your little shindig."

He couldn't resist. "Does this involve helping out in the dressing room?"

Giles rolled his eyes and left the young people to it.

"Sorry, Xan-man. Not your lucky day."

"Right. Can't blame a man for asking."

* * *

Evening found the blonde slayer looking for something—anything—to kill. And the crick in her neck from sleeping on a hard stone floor didn't exactly put her in the best of moods. At least she had managed to get some of the dust off.

A group of vampires out looking for a good time in the form of a blood meal had the misfortune to run across her right as she'd stepped on a thorn with her bare feet.

"Damn!"

All the vampire heads swiveled in her direction as she hitched herself up on a gravestone to extract it.

"Uh-oh, boys. I think we have a damsel in distress here. Does anyone know how to save one of those?"

Buffy kept her head down, delicately holding one red-nailed toe as she drew the thorn from the other, tender side. That didn't stop her from rolling her eyes, however. "Now, you know, I can finally officially say that the corny lines are not mandatory undead dialogue."

One of them snapped to the fact that the diminutive blonde seemed strangely unafraid of them and had a rather sharp tongue. "Slayer!"

She raised her head, her eyes glinting their hard jewel-green in the moonlight. "That's my name." She hopped down, having disposed of the troublesome thorn and surveying the group, now on its guard. "Don't wear it out. It's the only one I've got." And then her face shifted to that of the demon within as she snapped off a branch from the nearest tree.

"Hey, you're a vampire!"

The slayer stopped, looking around at the others as she hooked a thumb at the one who had spoken. "Okay, who turned boy genius over here?"

Another vampire raised his hand, a little shyly.

"Right, so you're the first to go. I mean, come on...there have to be standards."

He jerked his hand back down, looking horrified. "You can't kill me! That's like...murder or something!"

Her eyes darkened, even as her tone stayed light. "I never said I didn't have issues."

And she was on them, lashing out now with an even more superhuman speed. The first one, Mr. Raised Hand, went quickly in a cloud of dust that shrouded Buffy as she leapt through it towards the next. That one tangled with her, managing to land a punch to her jaw. She reeled back and spun into a roundhouse that caught him square in the sternum. He staggered and she moved in, stake raised, only to be intercepted by another who flaunted the standard one-at-a-time rule of demon attack. He bull-rushed her, slamming her back into a tree. She felt the rough bark tear at the flimsy, sheer material of her black tank top as he struggled to pin her arms. He snarled a grin as he managed to hold them tight against the bark above her head. A grin that disappeared as she head-butted him and regained control.

Before he could shake his head clear, she had grabbed an arm and swung him around into a convenient branch. It caught him through the shoulder, a little too high for the heart. She met his eyes and, with her makeshift stake, found his heart. Another branch nearly found hers. If she hadn't heard the slight whistle of it coming through the air, she would've been dead. Or dust. As it was, she took a glancing blow to her ribs, feeling the skin open up there in a hot gash.

Some of the blood she'd taken from Faith trickled out.

The slayer grabbed the stick, sent an elbow into his face, and turned his own weapon on him.

Looking around for something else to kill, she found only herself. The clip of running footsteps said the last one had run away from that fate. She grinned, feeling her lips curl around her fangs, and took off after him. Her blonde hair streaming out behind, she ran, feeling the cool of night around her, eyes picking out every detail in the moonlight as she made impossible leaps over the headstones in her way.

She saw him entering the populated streets of downtown and cautiously followed, forcing her face to revert, but keeping nonetheless to the dark alleyways. She knew them better than he did. Before long, he ran down the wrong one and trapped himself. Turning to fight, she could see him take her in. The jeans, the bare feet, the sheer tank revealing pale skin and a black bra underneath, the shock of blonde hair against all that dark. She could see him doubt his own fear of her, the a human ego flickering across his face, tinged with an also-human lust.

As he unconsciously ran his tongue across the tip of one fang, she sent her stake winging his way, aim as true as ever.

His dusting disturbed something in the shadows of the alleyway's dead end and, before Buffy knew what had happened, she found herself in the sights of a gray monster with a long head and a round, gaping mouth. It roared as it lashed out with an oversized arm, catching her in the shoulder and spinning her into the brick.

"What the—?" Her hands pushed her off the wall before its fist/paw crumbled the bricks where she'd been. She lashed out with a kick that caught it somewhere in the rib region. It grunted, but was otherwise un-phased. She crouched, ready to spring, when a dart came whizzing over her shoulder to plant itself in the creature's chest. It let out an enraged growl, and spun, leaping up the rooftop where it disappeared.

And Buffy turned around to find Riley.

* * *

She couldn't help but giggle at Riley's black-ops wear and the technological gizmos he kept checking as they drove through Sunnydale, tracking the beast.

"What?" He turned towards her, a hopeful smile spreading cautiously across his face.

"It's just...the whole thing's sort of James Bond."

"Boys and their toys."

She gave him a mock scowl. "That was supposed to be my line."

"I know. I thought I would save you the trouble. You know, all of us can't be as naturally talented at fighting the good fight." He spared a glance from the road, his hand resting easily on the steering wheel as he drove faster now that they were outside of town. "You look good, Buffy."

She turned to the window, wondering why he had to come back now, of all times. She said instead: "Looks like you're still with the military."

"Actually, you would be surprised what the Boy Scouts is into these days."

She turned from the window, her mouth open to ask.

He saw it and winked. "Kidding."

A little sheepish. "Oh, right." She took in the long scar running down across his face. "Dangerous work."

"No more than yours." He kept his eyes on the road. "I've been looking for you today, you know. I knew I needed the best to catch this demon."

"I've been sort of otherwise occupied." Her eyes were evasive, finding the window again.

He gave her a searching look, but then seemed to put it aside as he watched the little red dot on his screen slowing. "Well, I've got some big stories to tell you. You know, if we ever get a second."

"Did you die?"

"No."

"I'm gonna win."

He gave her another look, brows furrowed as he tried to understand the girl next to him that he'd never understood even when they were together. He caught sight of the rip along the side of her top. Alarmed, his eyes went to her pale face. Paler than he remembered. "Are you alright?"

He saw her blink, her mind coming back from far away. Her fingers trembled a little as they found the hole, the smear of blood around it. A grimace. "Fine." Her mouth was a tight line.

"Well, you should put these on anyway." He reached into the backseat and passed her a bundle of black clothes. She looked at them skeptically.

"Riley, I don't need any ninja wear. I'm already wearing black."

"Yours is torn and this has kevlar. It's state of the art."

The corner of her mouth tipped up. "I would expect no less. But, really, this sort of thing is just not...."

"_And_ you don't have any shoes."

Okay, she had to admit he had a point there. She looked skeptically down at what he'd given her. "Why do I think you're not going to have the sort of shoes I would've picked?"

He smiled, remembering that about Buffy. He pulled some boots out of the back seat and thought he heard the blonde mumble something like "you've got the wrong slayer." But nonetheless, she heaved a big sigh and nodded towards the clothes. "You'll be a gentleman?"

"Always." Again that wide smile. Buffy furrowed her brow a little at the word, wondering again whether Riley wanted more from her than just her slaying assistance. Escaping that can of worms, she climbed in to the back seat to don her new clothes.

The technology led them out to the dam where they found themselves at the top, with the machine telling them they needed to be at the bottom.

"Got an extra jet pack in that utility belt of yours?"

"Nope." He indulged her ribbing about his toys the way she had indulged his thing for Kevlar. Buffy stood next to him in a tight black turtleneck, cargo pants, and boots. She'd given him a ribbing about the pants. Something about all those pockets being another boy thing. "We'll just have to do this the old-fashioned way."

"That's me, old-fashioned Buffy." But she looked skeptically at the thin line.

"Don't worry, we're not hauling any gear. It'll hold just the two of us, if you hold on to me." He dared to meet her eyes on that one.

Hers skittered away from the intensity of his—why here? why now?—as she moved around to climb on to his back. "Ready when you are, Agent Finn." He lowered them slowly down.

At the bottom, both of them looked around warily. Riley kept staring down at the screen of his tracker, willing it to tell him exactly where the beast was so that he and Buffy could find it and fight it. Like they used to. He found himself staring at Buffy again. She was so mysterious, and unknown. His machines would tell him nothing about her, which certainly kept things interesting.

Lost in his thoughts, he had no chance to avoid the attack suddenly launched against him. The demon roared from the darkness, tackling him from behind. He heard Buffy shout out his name as he ducked under the monster's swinging arm. He hardly saw Buffy rush in. There was a blur, and then he saw her pinning the monster against the far wall. Its height advantage helped it pull an arm free and knock her to the floor hard.

Then it was Riley's turn to yell her name. He ran in to save the day, only to get by a swipe to his face that left a bloody streak. The blonde slayer pushed herself off the floor, hesitating as she felt her fangs pricking the inside of her lip. But she saw Riley catch a blow to the stomach that doubled him over. She struggled to keep her face human even as she felt the slayer in her press her forward, using Riley's body as leverage to swing around and kick the demon back into the other wall.

As Riley straightened, he positioned himself between the demon and Buffy, leaving her behind him, her back up against the wall. He felt the familiar petite press of her against him and found himself looking down to meet her eyes, which were dark, troubled, fixated on the scratch on his cheek.

"Riley, what—?"

Riley opened his mouth to say he didn't know and he was sorry, but before he could get anything out a brunette repelled down next to them, sauntering over to look first at Riley then at Buffy.

"What exactly are you doing with my husband?"


	34. Chapter 34

A/N: Super long chapter 'cause I made y'all wait. Feedback keeps me going!

* * *

"Me!? I'm not doing—wait, did you say 'husband'?" To Riley. "Did she say 'husband'?"

A flicker of guilt passed over his face, but in a flash it was gone, filled in by the social teaching that led him to nod and introduce the brunette. "Husband. And wife. Buffy, meet Sam. Sam, Buffy."

Sam gave her a tight-lipped smile. "Pleasure."

Buffy looked over Sam's shoulder. "Demon."

The Suvolte demon wasn't waiting for an introduction and came at them with a roar. The blonde slayer moved to intercept it, only to be preempted by a brown ponytail that stepped in front of her.

Sam's smile grew steely. "Mine." And, with that, the brunette was off and running into the fight.

Buffy raised her eyebrows at that, looking over at Riley, forcing a chipper note into her voice. "Well, isn't she just a go-getter!"

He shrugged, smiling a little helplessly. "She does that."

Buffy watched the woman fight, using several martial arts moves that the blonde recognized from Riley's military training. She itched to get in there herself, but that somehow seemed disrespectful when Sam was holding her own. Running a tongue over the tip of one incisor, Buffy found it slightly extended still. She stayed in the shadows next to the wall. Riley was married? It was still a question. Had he not been flirting with her earlier? Had she completely misread that? Why hadn't he told her? "So, you guys do the fighting thing together?"

"Yep. That's how we met actually."

They both watched Sam dart in to land careful blows that kept the demon back. "Right." How did either of them meet anyone if it didn't involve combat? Buffy wondered what that said about them. The couple that fights together, stays together? She knit her brow, thinking that somehow that wasn't the way that phrase was supposed to go, and yet....

He saw the look and misinterpreted it. "We fought together, too, Buffy."

She kept her eyes on Sam. "Yeah, and look how well that worked out." And then realized what she'd said, turning to catch Riley's hurt look. "Except, you know, I'm sure you guys will work out great...lots of happiness...you seem happy!"

"We are."

"Good."

"You should be happy, too."

"Oh, this is me happy. Happy Buffy."

"That wasn't very convincing."

"Sorry. Once more, with feeling: Happy Buffy. The hills are alive." One corner of her mouth twitched upwards at her own private joke.

Riley's forehead creased in confusion, watching that sly smile on her shadowed face. The mane of blonde hair she'd refused to tie back was like a beacon in the darkness next to the dam. Clearly against regulations. "Are you seeing anyone?"

She looked over at him sharply, raising an eyebrow. "I'll ignore the obvious parallel you are making between me being happy and me being with someone."

"Which didn't answer my question."

She paused. "It's complicated." She closed her eyes, seeing the dark slayer's brown eyes looking back at her. She opened them and Faith was gone. She looked around for a way out of this conversation. "Um...should we...?" Gesturing in the direction of the pair fighting.

"No need. She's actually quite good. I almost feel sorry for the Suvolte." As he spoke, Buffy could see the blow coming before it landed, knocking Sam to the ground. "But not quite."

Riley moved in, but was passed up by the blonde slayer, grateful to have something easy to deal with. She landed a punch to the demon's gut, seeing its arm come up to backhand her, not in time to miss it, but in time to roll with the blow. She pushed off the wall and whirled into a backhand of her own. She could feel Sam's eyes calculating the superhuman force in the impact that sent the beast reeling back. Looking over, she caught the other woman's searching look. Buffy turned back to press her advantage with a roundhouse that snapped the demon's oblong head to one side.

It shook off the blow, sensing that this current opponent was more than it wanted to take on. It leapt instead for Riley.

"Hey, come back here! I wasn't finished!" Buffy lunged after it, catching a gray leg, which was enough to stop its forward progress and get her a kick in the face for her troubles.

Seeing Buffy dazed a little from the blow, her lip bleeding, Sam rushed in. "Please, allow me."

Buffy quickly stood up. "No, really, I'm okay." But she was one step behind the enthusiastic operative who kicked out at the demon and only managed a glancing blow as the Suvolte jerked to one side and reached out with its massive arm to grab Sam around the throat and hold her a little off the floor. Sam's eyes widened as Buffy, snarling, darted in, leaping to catch the demon with an arm around its neck, dragging it with her to the floor where it growled in fury as she worked to pin it and then, with a quick twist, snapped its neck.

She stood proudly over it. "My wedding gift to you. Many happy years and children and whatever."

"You killed it?" Riley looked pale.

"Oh...it's okay, honey." Sam laid a hand on his shoulder.

Buffy watched them, her moment draining away. Her tongue darted, nervously, out across the stinging cut on her lip. "No need for a 'thank you' card, really."

The brunette sighed, looking over at Buffy. Seeing the other girl's face, a flicker of confusion passed over her, but she shelved it for later. "Let me guess. Captain Can-Do here forgot to mention this was a homing operation."

"It was going to kill you!"

Riley rubbed a hand across his eyes. "It's my fault...I didn't explain."

Sam looked over at Riley, exasperated. "You recruit the slayer without filling her in on the objective?"

"There wasn't time to tell her!"

Sam shot him an eyebrow. "There was time to make sure she got the right clothes, but not to say two sentences?" Riley's look said he knew he wasn't going to win this argument. He watched his wife point at Buffy. "Slayers kill, Riley. That's what they do. You know that."

The blonde slayer blanched, running a hand across her face—to make sure. She looked over to find Sam's eyes on her. "I'd just like to add that we kill bad things that are about to kill other people, which is usually considered—" She was still standing, impotently, over the demon's carcass.

Riley cut her off, trying another approach with his wife. "The slayer—Buffy and I have fought together before. I thought we would be working together on this and that we would have it bagged by the time—"

"Without giving her the orders."

Buffy bristled. "Hey, I don't take orders!" Sam and Riley both looked at her. "I have a problem with authority. And I'm not in your club."

Sam looked none to pleased at that, grabbing a knife off of Riley's belt and coming towards the slayer with it. Buffy cocked an eyebrow at her, tensing, until the brunette bent down to slice open the demon's gut.

"Um...ew?" Buffy pointed at Sam while she looked at Riley. "Does she always do that?"

Sam spoke up before he had a chance to. "We're too late." By way of explanation for Buffy. "It's eggs are gone. Somewhere." Back to her husband with a sigh. "Agent Finn, if we weren't under severe time constraints, I'd seriously think about ripping you a new one."

Riley smirked at her. "Stand down, soldier."

Sam couldn't help but grin back as Buffy asked "He's your boss, too?"

The brunette kept her eyes on Riley for a moment. "Oh, he wishes." Then turning to the blonde slayer. "I hate to impose further, Buffy, but do you have a safe house where we can regroup?"

"We're not really the sort of organization that has safe houses. But I have a house house."

Riley moved to go. "I know where it is." Sam looked once between Riley and Buffy and then started to head back for the car.

* * *

"Can you...um...."

Riley turned from the passenger side to look into the backseat, where the pale blonde was watching the night sky. "Buffy?"

"Can you drop me off?"

"Drop you off? Why? Where?" He turned back around to scowl at Sam, who was slowing the car down. "I thought we were going to your house. I thought we would get a chance to catch up."

Buffy ignored the last part of that. "You _are_ going to my house. I'd like you to drop me off first, though."

"Buffy, what—?"

Sam put her hand on Riley's arm. "Maybe it's better. We'll need to formulate a plan to find the eggs and we don't need Buffy for—" She had pulled over to the curb.

Adamant. "Buffy's going with us." Finding Buffy's eyes in the shadows. "Right, Buffy?"

"Hey, I don't want to get in the middle of—"

"Riley, we don't need a slayer for this. There's nothing to slay." To Buffy. "Look, we really appreciate your help and it was a pleasure meeting you and I'm sure you and Riley can catch up later or send postcards—"

"We didn't need to slay anything before and you agreed we could call her in to help."

"Yes, and her helping ended up being slaying."

Buffy tried to get a word in edgewise. "You know, here's fine. Why don't I just—" She opened the door.

Riley opened his, too. "I'm not leaving you...." He looked around. "...in the middle of a...graveyard?"

Sam had gotten out by this time. "See, a graveyard? Riley, now don't you think she probably just wanted to do her job? I think that's great. Shows a strong work ethic."

Buffy stared at Sam. "Um...thanks?"

The brunette plowed on, bound on convincing her husband to get back into the car. "She'll go kill some bad guys, while we go find the safe house...."

The neighborhood looked ludicrously safe around them, all trimmed lawns, garbage cans neatly lined up at the curb for the first garbage trucks that would be making their dawn runs soon. Safe with the exception of that blood-curdling scream that shattered the quiet. All three heads whirled in that direction.

Riley pulled out his dart gun, checking its chamber. "I'm loaded. Suvolte, maybe?"

Sam checked the pockets of her cargo pants. "Might have been another. Got ammo for demon and vamp."

Riley gave a crisp nod, then turned to ask Buffy, only to see the blonde slayer already running through the headstones.

Sam watched her go, then turned to Riley. "Are we engaging? What's our plan?"

"Follow her."

"That's not a—"

But, by then, Riley was already running after Buffy. Sam had no choice but to follow.

* * *

It didn't take Buffy long to find the vampires, circling around the late meal they'd snared: a Sunnydale resident foolish enough to attempt an early run through the graveyard. The slayer caught sight of the blonde-haired victim cowering with one large vampire's hand wrapped around her throat and ran faster even as she saw him bending in to feed. She snapped a branch off a tree and plunged it straight through one vampire before the group even knew she was there.

Then it was a whirl of blonde and black as she lashed out at the others in the group. The blonde victim tried to take advantage of the distraction and rammed the heel of her hand into the vampire's nose. That vampire howled and stepped back, but another jumped in, jerking her back before she ran away. Buffy snarled and broke away from her own fight to rush at the one who had her. But as she drove him back, he kept his grip on his victim and all three of them went crashing, head-first, into a mausoleum. The blonde woman slumped to the ground, unconscious. Buffy and the vampire both dropped to their knees, stunned.

Another vampire thought it was his lucky day and dove in, pinning Buffy down and bending in for her neck. Only to stop, confused, at the lack of pulse there. And as he wavered, he suddenly exploded in a cloud of dust, leaving Buffy looking up into familiar dark brown eyes. Eyes that met her own and then quickly swept over her, relieved to find her intact.

"Faith?"

"Buffy?" But that wasn't Faith's voice and both slayers looked over their shoulder to see Riley running up. The dark slayer looked from Riley back down to Buffy, taking in her black turtleneck, cargo pants, boots—the same as his. But she only had a second before the remaining four vamps were on all of them. Two of them grabbed Faith by either arm, hauling her off Buffy. The blonde slayer growled, rising to help, only to find herself slammed back down by another vampire pinning her to the ground. She would have let out a gasp of breath, had she needed to. Because she didn't need to, she head-butted him instead.

He bared his fangs, but stayed where he was on top of her. She spared a glance to one side, saw Riley exchanging punches with his assailant, and beyond him she saw Faith, a grin on her face as she jabbed a stake through one of her vampires. Buffy's eyes flickered back just in time to see the wooden stake whistling for her heart and she jerked her hand in front of it, feeling the tip of it dig a little into her palm before she could stop it.

From far away, she heard someone scream her name. Faith. Buffy saw her own hand quivering as its strength matched itself against the strength of the vampire bearing down on her with the assistance of gravity. And then she felt a little give as the vampire looked to one side and then she was pushing against nothing as the stake was no longer threatening her, but was turned against Faith and would've gone right into her gut had Buffy not pushed it aside at the last moment and, with her own fangs bared, turned the point of it through the vampire instead.

As the dust settled, a wooden bullet tore through Buffy's rib cage, just missing her heart. She cried out and fell back.

"What the fuck!? Who—?" Faith shoved the staggering blonde behind her, looking around for the enemy and finding Sam a few feet away with her weapon raised.

"Sam!" Riley yelled at his wife. She didn't listen to him, turning slightly to take out the last vamp with one quick shot, before bringing her sights back to Buffy, who leaned against the wall behind Faith.

"Okay, who the hell are you and why are you shooting at B?"

Sam choose to answer her husband rather than the dark slayer. "Riley, she's a vampire! I _knew_ something was wrong with her!"

"Buffy's a—?" Looking over at his ex's still-transformed face, he could see it was true. "Why didn't you tell me?"

Through gritted teeth Buffy still managed some outrage. "You didn't tell me you were married!"

"Well, I think this is just a little different!"

"Hey, that's that guy!" Faith had just recognized Riley in the dark. A quick glance at the blonde behind her. "You're back with him, B?"

Buffy let out an indignant "No!" and Riley looked over sharply.

Sam narrowed her eyes. "What do you mean 'that guy'?"

Faith reached out a hand behind her to steady the other slayer, her eyebrow a question. Buffy closed her eyes but nodded, tight-lipped. She waved vaguely between Faith and the Riley and Sam. "Faith, meet Riley's wife, Sam." A pause. "I think you already know Riley."

Sam looked back and forth between Riley and Faith, who appeared to be muttering "shit" under her breath. "How does she know—?"

But Riley was still a little fixated. "Buffy, you're a vampire!"

Faith gave him a look. "Okay, I know you're not the brightest, but we've been through this. B's a vamp, but still herself...most of the time." To Sam. "So ease up, G.I. Jane."

"Who are you?" This time from Sam, who still had her gun raised.

Faith rolled her eyes. "Never mind, you guys are made for each other. I'm Faith, girl you tried to dust is B, that's your hubby, and you're Sam." Sam gave her an annoyed look.

"Wait, you're Faith?" This time from Riley.

"Jesus! What is with you people!? I give up!" Faith threw her hands in the air.

"That Faith?" Riley looked around the dark slayer to try to meet Buffy's eyes, but those eyes were squeezed shut as the blonde slayer leaned back against the mausoleum, clutching her side. So Faith answered for her.

"Yeah, we fucked when there was that whole thing with B," Faith glanced behind her. "...and I'm not proud of that, so let's just move on."

"Riley, what the hell is going on!?" Sam had dropped her gun, but looked as if she was debating turning it on the young man next to her.

"It's sort of hard to explain, but it's not as bad as it sounds. I thought Faith was Buffy, and she was, for a while anyway, but we got it sorted out."

Sam looked incredulously from the dark brunette to the blonde California girl behind. "Riley, how could you mistake—?"

But Riley was addressing Buffy. "Buffy, can we trust Faith? I know before there were...issues."

"She's fine, Riley. We've been working together." Buffy had her hand over her eyes, forcing her face to revert in spite of the pain as she wondered if this could all get any worse.

"Faith?"

Everyone turned at once to stare at the blonde woman sitting on the ground, holding her head.

Faith's eyes went wide. "Hey, I know you!"

"Faith, is that...? I thought you were supposed to be in the hospital."

"Why would I...you discharged...?"

"Okay, who the hell are you?" This from Buffy, who was sizing up the other blonde.

Faith muttered. "She did the psych eval in the hospital after, you know...."

"Oh."

Riley was listening closely. "A psych eval? Buffy, I thought you said Faith was stable? If she becomes dangerous to you again, like last time—"

The blonde slayer cut him off, eyes flashing as she pushed herself off the wall and took a few unsteady steps towards the soldier. "She won't, so why don' t you just drop it." It wasn't a question.

As Buffy moved, Sam took a step forward, half-raising her gun. And got a punch to her face. She grabbed her nose as she glared at Faith.

"Hey!"

"Sorry, my hand slipped." The brunette slayer had put herself between Sam and Buffy again.

"Faith!" The brunette slayer jerked her head around to the blonde woman still on the ground. "I didn't recommend discharge. What I recommended was further observation based on your violent tendencies...." The psychologist flicked her eyes over to Sam's bloody nose. "...which I can see still persist."

Faith's face went slack for a moment. Then she hissed under her breath: "Oh fuck." Buffy stepped in, addressing the other woman.

"Look, whatever you recommended, the doctors chose to release Faith and I think right now you're just a little shaken up from the attack—"

"God, that's right! Who were those guys?" She glanced around at the four people staring at her, taking in the dark clothes on three of them, the weaponry, the bleeding wound. "For that matter, who are all of you?"

Riley jumped in. "Neighborhood watch, ma'am."

Buffy tried to help. "Right, you can never be too safe from those, um, gangs, so it was a good thing that our newest recruit here knew lots of moves that were, um, offensive." Something didn't sound right there. "You know, for against other people."

"Well, I suppose I should be grateful to you then, Faith."

Faith looked from the woman to Buffy, whose green eyes were searching her own as she leaned against her. She looked back up at the blonde woman, who was mouthing "Is that...?" and pointing at Buffy. Faith shrugged.

Riley went on. "Perhaps we can walk you home, make sure you make it there safely...."

"That's my house just right over there. Maybe, if you wouldn't mind...." Riley dutifully came over to escort her, stopping long enough for her to throw back at Faith. "You know, if you need to talk...."

A curt "thanks." And the two of them walked the short distance across the street.

Sam opened her mouth to say something, but Faith spoke first. "B, dawn."

The blonde looked off into the dark, feeling the chill of the early morning. "I know. But I don't know if I should...."

"Why not?"

"Because I don't want to put you in danger." She turned to meet those brown eyes watching her.

"Well, apparently we're both dangerous, so it evens out." A pause. "And Xander and I bought you a new bed."

Riley had just walked back up. "Why would you be buying her a new bed?"


	35. Chapter 35

A/N: Feedback? Anyone? Anyone?

* * *

Buffy had the vague idea that, from the front seat, Riley was saying something about some country he and Sam had just come from, some terrible demon they had just "bagged," some exciting mission or another. Faith wasn't listening, looking instead out the window. Buffy, next to her in the backseat, wondered whether that bullet had gone through her lung, then wondered if she still had lungs, then wondered what she could possibly have inside her if it wasn't still all the things that had been inside her before she died.

"Your Kevlar officially sucks, you know."

Riley stopped talking mid-sentence and turned around in the passenger seat to look back at Buffy, who seemed, he thought, even paler than before.

"Are you okay? It's not designed to handle shots from that close range—"

"I bet that's what you tell all your ex's."

"—and it's not really designed to handle the sort of firepower we can bring."

Buffy raised an eyebrow at him.

He continued, by way of explanation. "There was some concern that we be able to control any rogue agents."

A pause. "Your world is a scary one."

He raised an eyebrow right back at her. "No more than yours, apparently." She could tell he was still upset about her little withholding of information. And she could swear she saw his eyes flicker over to Faith. Out of the corner of her eye, she could tell the dark slayer was still staring into the early morning, but she could see the tenseness in her jaw. And underneath that jaw, the half-healed reminder of her own bite. Buffy shut her eyes. Riley went on. "Is it bad? We could try a hospital...."

"Then you can just drop me the fuck off first." This from Faith at the same time Sam said: "Riley, she's dead and she's been shot."

The young man furrowed his brow at the dark slayer before looking over at his wife, who caught the look and went on.

"I'm just saying that those conditions might provoke some attention we don't need."

"S'alright. No hospital for me. One way or the other I'll live. Relatively speaking." She looked at Faith, then out the window past her. "Besides, there's no time."

And, thankfully, they pulled into the drive.

Inside, Buffy hurried for the basement door, Faith at one side. Dawn took the other, stopping only long enough to give Riley an eyebrow and an "Agent Finn returns," before she left him to someone else's welcome wagon.

Riley introduced his own wife, shook hands with Xander.

"Hey, there's the man. Life taker, heartbreaker." A pause. "Gonna be me, you know. Us. The marriage thing, not the life-taker thing."

"Hey, congratulations, Xander! I know you're going to love it."

"Anya and me, tomorrow." His eyes opened wide. "Wow...tomorrow."

Riley clapped a hand on his shoulder. "Deep breaths."

"You must stay."

Riley looked over at Anya, then raised an eyebrow at Xander. "Um...."

"You and Sam are very all-American. That's the sort of thing we need in our pictures."

Xander put his arm around Anya's waist. "I don't know, honey. Our families might actually be more representative of America." He grinned at Riley. "Which is not to say you couldn't stay to help keep the peace."

Riley opened his mouth to say something, but was cut off by Willow coming down the stairs. "Will that be with or without the paramilitary costume?" The redhead quirked an eyebrow at him, but smiled as he pulled her into a hug. She frowned a little as she spotted Sam over his shoulder. "Uh oh, there's more. It must be serious. Did you leave the rest of your platoon on the porch?"

"Willow!" His greeting turned to shock as he saw the angry bruise on her chin, the fading finger marks around her throat. "What did this?"

"Faith." She waved him off. "Long story."

He frowned, looking over at Xander, whose own look was serious. "Well, um...anyway, this is Sam, my wife. And I'm afraid there _is_ somewhat of a problem with a demon. I came for Buffy's help, but...." He looked over at Sam, whose face told him there would be more discussion about this. Willow caught the look.

"Well, we're all here to help. That's what we do—"

"Except when we hinder."

Willow shot Anya a glance, then turned back to Riley and then to Sam. "I'm going to go—" She pointed in the direction of the basement.

"Is there anything I can do to help? I think Sam's bullet went through and through, but—"

Willow looked, startled, over at the brunette, eyes flickering down to the weapon at her hip. From behind her, Xander grumbled that "apparently we aren't the only ones who hinder."

Anya looked up from the seating charts. "You know that a bullet won't—"

Sam cut in. "We have wooden ones. For vampires."

"Oh, well, in that case, you're just a bad shot." And the blonde went back to her arrangements.

"I still don't understand how I missed—"

Riley cut her off. "Sam."

She caught his tone. "Right."

Willow gave Sam one last look. "Guess I'll grab the first aid kit then. Nice to meet you." And then went down to find Buffy.

* * *

As she entered the basement, she walked into the middle of a discussion of Buffy's new furniture.

"Faith, it's a _sleigh_ bed." Buffy was leveling a look at the brunette, incredulous. "I mean, it's really pretty and everything, but—"

"See, I tried to tell Xander it wasn't funny, but then he said it was and he started snickering and then the salesman was looking at us funny and I started snickering. And, anyway, here's your new bed." She spread her hands out as if to show it off, then dropped them back down to her thighs and stuffed them deep in her pockets.

The bed had been nestled into a corner of the room. Buffy suspected that Dawn was responsible for there being a rug underneath and a lamp providing softer light than the lone bare bulb of the room. They'd even moved a dresser full of her clothes down.

"Well, I think it's nice." Dawn was bouncing a little on the edge of it.

"So do I. I love it. Thank you, Faith. Really." She smiled at the other girl, seeing those brown eyes take it in. Then all of them turned to look back down at the bed. "And so many pillows."

"Okay, I'll take the blame for that one. You seemed like the pillow type. But I got in the department with the pillows and shit, and it was sort of scary, so I panicked." She shrugged. The bed was nearly eclipsed by them

Dawn smirked. "I'm _so_ going to spread the word about this."

"Dawn." A warning from Buffy, who then turned back to Faith. "Pillows are of the good."

"So, I hear you're the girl I don't want to mess with in a pillow fight?"

Buffy, Faith, and Dawn all whirled to find Willow looking a little uncertain at the foot of the stairs.

Faith narrowed her eyes, then breezed past her up and out the basement door, saying she was "going for a smoke."

Willow watched her go, then looked back to see Buffy watching her go, and then Buffy meeting her eyes. Willow felt her mouth go a little dry. "I'm sorry I took your bed. It was just, you know, with Tara, and she'd rather, so I—"

Buffy gave a nod to her little sister, who caught the message and left the two old friends alone. Willow injected a little bounce in her step and came over with the first aid kit next to Buffy. The blonde moved gingerly to perch on the edge of the bed. "S'okay. I wasn't going to use it up there anyway." She met the redhead's eyes. "How are you and Tara?"

Willow's face sank a little. "She says she's angry. I'm trying to give her a little space." Then a glimmer of a smile. "But, oh, yesterday morning we made pancakes together for Dawn! There wasn't a lot of talking, but there was batter, and joint effort!" She tried to look hopeful, rushing on. "And speaking of relationships, I met Sam up there. I just want you to know, I'm prepared to hate this woman any way you want."

The blonde slayer frowned a little. "I don't want to seem petty."

"Buffy, she shot you."

The blonde grimaced, feeling the painful reminder of that as she pulled the black top over her head. "You're right. Go nuts."

"Oh, Buffy." Willow's words came with the exhale of breath as she saw the wounds on Buffy's torso. The bullet hole, the gash on her side, the smeared blood everywhere. The black of the turtleneck had hidden that, but Willow could feel the dried crust of blood as she tossed the garment in the direction of the laundry. She wet a washrag in the sink and started to wipe some of it away, forcing herself not to stare at the ghastly pale of the other girl's skin against the black lace bra. Buffy sucked on her bottom lip as Willow approached the wounds themselves.

"Why do you think it does that?"

"Huh?" The redhead looked up, reaching for a bandage. "Does what?"

The blonde nodded down at her arm, where it had been burned before, and only the faintest scarring remained. "Heals."

Willow just saw the wound she had made. "Oh, Buffy, I'm so sorry! There was Dawn and—"

"No, that's not...I just meant, why does it bother healing like I'm still alive?"

"Um...because you're undead, not dead? And that's no reason not to be pretty?" Willow tried a smile.

"Do you think it heals inside, too?" Buffy stared down at the . "Or am I like those things with the ants?"

Willow stared. "Things with the ants?" Venturing. "Um...ant farms?"

"Right, like with the trails inside all around."

The image snapped into the redhead's head. "Buffy, that's gross."

The blonde's shoulders slumped a little, then tensed again as Willow rubbed ointment around the bullet's entry.

"I just wanted to be normal. Riley knew me when I was normal. I mean, he knew me when I was a slayer, too, but he wanted to date be before that, right? And now he's all married and I'll never get married."

"What, you can't love anymore? Piffle!"

Buffy looked up, half-smiling. "Will, did you just say 'piffle' at me?"

"Did she say what?"

Both heads turned to find Tara watching them from the stairs. Willow couldn't keep the smile off her face.

"Tara!" But then her face darkened as something dawned on her. "Hey, I'm not doing anything. Look, I'm just helping. With gauze." She held up a roll. "See, there's gauze."

"Gauze is good." The blonde witch nodded. "But I just wanted to see how Buffy was after the hospital the other day...."

"Better, I guess." The blonde slayer rubbed her hand across her eyes, the black shadows there. "I was just so...I don't know, so crazy."

"See, that's what I told you!" The redhead's chin was set as she turned to Tara, but her eyes were also pleading.

Buffy looked between the two of them. "Will was right, Tara. I _was_ out of control. I could have hurt you. Or someone else. She did what I would have done." A pause. "Okay, not exactly what I would have done, because I don't know how she knocked me out. But you get the point."

"But, Buffy, she—"

"Tara, please, don't blame her. Blame me. I'm the one you should be scared of."

"Oh, Buffy." Tara reached out and smoothed the unruly waves of the other girl's hair. Willow offered her one end of the gauze and she took it. Together they started to wrap it around the blonde slayer's middle.

* * *

"You know that could kill you."

Faith stayed where she was, leaning against the porch railing, a nearly spent cigarette in between her fingers. "Not really worried about a long life."

Xander leaned next to her, looking out in to the early morning. Neighbors going out to get their newspapers. "Thanks for finding her."

"Three people in uniforms and a host of demons. They woulda been hard to miss."

"Yeah, now see, I'm completely jealous...I'm supposed to be the one with the military know-how around here. And here they come all special-ops-y. How can a man compete with that?"

"Looks like they won B over anyway."

He glanced over at her. "Um, Faith? Didya miss the whole Sam shooting her thing?"

"Didn't miss the new style B was sportin'." Another drag. "Didn't miss that I couldn't find her last night."

This time he was full-on staring at the dark slayer. "Faith, you don't seriously think—"

"I don't think anything."

He sighed, knowing how remarkably uncommunicative she could be when she so chose. "Well, how did you convince her back here? I mean, she is down in the basement right now."

"She was all worried about hurtin' me. I said we were 'bout even on that score."

Xander furrowed his brows. "That sounds like a good strategy...if you're waging a cold war. But I'm not sure mutually assured destruction is the way you wanna go here for a relationship, Faith."

"We're not in a relationship."

"Don't hit me but...the hell you're not."

Faith looked over at him. The depths of those brown eyes almost took his breath away. And he wasn't even looking at the rest of her. She didn't say anything, and then turned back out to the street, dark locks falling around her face like a veil.

Xander plowed on. "Look, these things are scary. You think I'm not scared about marrying Anya?"

Faith suppressed a snort. "Hell, I'd be scared if I was marrying her."

"You have a point. But _my _point is that I know something about being with a difficult woman. And, no offense, but between you and Buffy, you guys amount to like ten difficult women." He sighed. "Look, everybody knows you guys can fight with each other. Everybody knows you can fight for each other. And I'm sure you have incredible, steamy, amazing—"

"Xander."

"Right. Anyway, the only thing nobody knows is whether you guys can actually talk to each other."

The dark slayer kept staring out into the street where cars now started to leave for work, reminding Xander he needed to do the same. So he did, leaving her to smoke in silence.

* * *

By the time Faith went down into the basement, much of the house was quiet, its exhausted residents finally grabbing some sleep. She found the blonde slayer alone, in the black cargo pants Riley had given her, a bra, and bandages, slowly moving through that Tai Chi routine Faith had shown her the other day. A few drained packets of blood lay on the floor next to the bed.

The first thing Faith did was open her mouth.

"I looked for you last night, you know."

Buffy stopped, looking over at her, not saying anything. The shadows under her eyes were deep and dark.

So Faith went on, glancing down at the other girl's pants, then back up to challenge those eyes. "Should I have looked for Riley instead?"

The blonde closed her eyes and ran a hand back through her hair. When she spoke, her voice was quiet. "Faith, if you want to know whether I had sex with him last night, just ask."

The dark slayer shrugged noncommittally. Buffy rolled her eyes.

"No, I didn't, to answer you. And to answer the next question you won't ask me, I don't want to."

"Then where—?"

"I was in a mausoleum. I slept in a corner, on the floor. Dawn was still picking leaves out of my hair earlier." She paused, walking closer to Faith until she was standing only a few inches from the other girl. She could feel her heat. She met those dark brown eyes. "I need to know...did you let me hurt you or make me hurt you?"

The hoarse voice told her "I don't know." Faith was trying to be honest. Buffy cocked her head for a moment, then reached out and pushed a strand of hair behind the other girl's ear. Faith almost closed her eyes, almost leaned into that touch.

Still quietly. "You're not crazy, Faith."

"B, you don't—"

"I do. I wouldn't be here if you were. You and I have been down that road." She leaned in and kissed Faith softly on the lips, then pulled away and looked in those wide brown eyes again. "You can't tell me that's where we are now."

Faith's voice almost broke. "What do you want from me?" There was no edge in it.

Buffy stepped closer, right up against her, laying her ear against the other girl's chest to hear the heartbeat there. "Hold me. Please."

Faith stiffened, her body having to shift from its accustomed response, unsure what to do with the blonde pressed into her. So she did what she was asked.


	36. Chapter 36

A/N: Extra-long, for your reading pleasure! Always grateful for your thoughts!

* * *

As is so often the case in dreams, Faith was running. She didn't know where from or where to, away from what or straight into what, but running she was. The rough fingers of branches whipped her face as she ran through graveyards and woods. Slayer speed and it was a blur of green, dark, night. Some fight pumping through her. Hot blood.

And then darkness, on the ground. Her world was sticky and wet and she struggled to remember how to see things again. What was going on. Where she was. The scene slowly resolved itself into a dark clearing, a night. And, beneath her, a body, whose blood she was covered in, kneeling in. Blood on her hands, smeared up her arms. The very human body of the boy she knew even though she hadn't seen him at the arcade, his eyes wide and staring at her. Afraid. His throat a mess of too vivid blood. It was all over her.

And she screamed.

* * *

Buffy was jerked out of her own sleep by the sound of it, starting up in the bed the two slayers had fallen down into, holding each other.

"Wha—?" The older slayer shook away the fog in her head, reaching out with a reflexive arm to catch the other slayer around her waist just before she launched off the bed.

"Let go, B." The husky voice was a warning.

The blonde did not let her go. "You know I'm strong enough to hold you here." She felt Faith's stomach muscles tense against her arm and wondered whether she would try to test that strength. For a moment it seemed she might. Then Faith jerked up her jacket off the floor and grabbed out a pack of cigarettes and lighter from one pocket before dropping it again. She lit up and stared into the expanse of the basement, not seeing it.

Buffy curled up behind her, smelling the tobacco burn, wrapping her body around the younger girl and whispering into her back: "It's okay, it was just a dream. It's okay, Faith." She could feel the other girl's trembling heartbeat. She pushed it from her mind. "Tell me what you saw."

Buffy did not say that she already knew what she'd seen herself.

And for a moment she didn't think Faith would say anything. Her arm stayed wrapped around the dark slayer's body. She felt the heat seep into her and knew the relatively cold comfort that her body must be to Faith.

"I killed that guy."

"What?"

"In my dream, I killed him. That guy from the arcade. Like I almost did before. Finished it." The dark slayer's voice was raspy from sleep or emotion, Buffy couldn't tell. All she could see was the thin material of her t-shirted back, the long, dark waves of hair cascading down.

"Faith, you're not—"

"I swear to god, B, don't say I'm not a killer...." Buffy opened her mouth to respond, but wasn't fast enough. "It's a fuckin' lie. We both are."

Buffy snapped her mouth shut. Her hand rested over a scar that held the truth of that. Softly. "I know." A pause. She rested her forehead against the other girl's back. "We do it when we have to and stop when we don't."

"Do we?"

The blonde grimaced, remembering the bloody scene of her dream, the guilty thrill of it. It was a fair question. "We try."

"Does that make us the good guys or the bad guys?" The ember of her cigarette made its own little light.

Buffy had to be honest. "I don't know. Makes us slayers." Her thumb made a small, unconscious circle pattern on Faith's stomach.

"You know, 'cause in prison they're all about 'never a good reason' and 'sacredness of life'—all that shit that seems right when they're sayin' it. And I was tryin' to do the right thing and walk that line." Another drag. "Like you wanted me to." Faith had tried to do what she wanted.

Buffy closed her eyes. "You're not like them." She moved around in front of Faith, settling onto the other girl's thighs, legs locked around her. Her green eyes found Faith's brown ones. "And I was wrong. You needed help, but I should've.... What you needed wasn't there." A pause. There was too much to even say, so she went on. "It was a dream. You haven't done this."

Those brown eyes were almost black in the dark. "Yet."

"Why would you?"

"Almost did it before."

Buffy's eyes darkened a little as she swept a strand of dark hair behind Faith's ear. "The key word being 'almost.' And he was trying to kill you." She felt her fangs extending a little at the thought of that, at the thought of his knife at her throat. She shook her head, willing them to retract, glad to see Faith looking past her into nothing.

The dark slayer snorted. "Shoulda been able to deal with that. Pretty shitty slayer if I can't deal with one a your high school classmates with delusions of grandeur." Her eyes slid back to meet Buffy's again, a glint in them. Her hands moved to rest on the blonde's waist. Buffy was aware of every finger there. The heartbeat in that touch. "And if I hadn't said so already, the caliber of demon 'round here has really gone down."

Buffy cocked an eyebrow, matching that lighter tone. "Oh, I don't know...you didn't see the gray beastie thing I fought earlier. It was ugly and big." A pause, frowning. "And do new wives count as evil? New wives that shoot ex-girlfriends?"

"Bothers you, don't it?" Faith watched the emotions flickering over the older slayer's face. She pushed a little. "You wish he wasn't married?"

Buffy caught the tone and was careful to look her in the eye. "No. It's just...." Faith raised an eyebrow expectantly. "Riley was like this promise everything could be normal. You know, holding hands in the daylight, that sort of thing."

Faith did know. She remembered being Buffy to Riley, seeing the tenderness, the possibilities of Intimacy and Relationship, with capital letters. How angry it had made her. And she still had the urge to separate those two. She idly wondered if it had been for the same reasons then. "Except he was involved with a massive, secret, underground military operation."

"Well, when you put it that way...." Buffy gave her a half-smile. "Yeah, even my normal is para." She laced her fingers together behind Faith's neck. "Let that be a warning to you. Run while you still can."

Despite her reputation, Faith stayed right where she was, noticing the desire darkening the blonde's eyes. "Well, you know, I would but, see, I've got this thing sittin'—"

Buffy, indignant. "Hey, who you callin' a 'thing'?!"

"What do you want me to call ya?" There was a lot in the question, in spite of her grin.

The blonde pitched her voice somewhere around sultry. "How about the girl you're making love to?"

Faith blinked, then recovered herself. "Boy, that's gonna be a mouthful—"

That was all she got out before her mouth was captured by the pale blonde in front of her. The one who had her hands on either side of her face, who was practically humming with pleasure at the kiss. Faith's hands skated across Buffy's back, feeling the smooth, cool skin that went all the way down to the waistband of her cargo pants. Running a finger under and along it. The blonde arched into her, deepening the kiss, biting at Faith's lower lip. Faith threaded her fingers into that long, silky blonde mane and held the smaller girl to her, to her hungry mouth as their tongues found and tasted each other.

Faith chuckled, hearing the other girl's muted expressions of frustration at the clothes keeping her from Faith. She suffered from no such bad luck, and deftly unhooked the bra that was all that stood between her and Buffy's skin. Those breasts. She slid her hands between the black lace and the ivory curves beneath, delighting in feeling what she could not yet see: the soft skin, the tight nipple, until she couldn't stand it and threw the bra aside to take them in with her amazed eyes. Kiss them. Graze her teeth over them. Bring them into her mouth as the blonde groaned at the exquisite heat that narrowed her body to one sensitive spot.

Buffy's hands scrambled under Faith's shirt, tugging at it, until finally Faith relented and helped, ripping the t-shirt over her head and flinging it god knows where. Buffy smiled, pleased, looking down over that nearly naked torso, reaching out a finger to trace along the bra that covered those ample breasts. Down the strap, over the curve of the top, running her tongue in the valley between, running a fingertip along the wire. The dark slayer purred, watching with half-lidded eyes as the blonde took a breast in each hand, pulling the bra's satin back to reveal one's nipple to her mouth while the other hand tweaked that sensitive nub through the material, making her jump.

Buffy's legs pulled the two of them tighter while her hips started a slow, grinding rhythm into Faith's, enjoying the pressure of hips and zippers and the wet heat building inside. Faith growled, pulling the other girl's mouth back up to hers as the cold air hit her nipple again. Kisses that left both of their lips swollen and red. Faith's mouth found the blonde's jawbone and worked its way around to the shell of an ear. A tongue traced the delicate cartilage. Buffy gasped, throwing her head back as the dark slayer's tongue traveled back down. She fumbled for the button on Faith's jeans and succeeding in popping it, sliding down the zipper, tooth by tooth.

But a frustration of clothes still in the way! She whimpered, feeling Faith reach around to unwind her legs, freeing her to stand in front while the brunette's mouth never lost its tight hold over one nipple as Faith stood, too. And Buffy shimmied out of those cargo pants, fumbling to help the other slayer out of her jeans until everything was on the floor and Buffy's legs clamped once again around Faith, who sat back and brought a hand between them, a finger then two between them, finding that wet channel and pushing into it just as Buffy pressed down onto her hand and drove her deeper until she was—incredibly!—inside the blonde, feeling her clench from there. Then her own clench as Buffy's fingers found her answering wetness and brought it up in a slow circle around her clit, getting faster, dipping down into her again even as she drove up into Buffy in a rhythm punctuated by the older girl's cries.

Faith threw her head back with her own groan at how good the blonde felt, coming and going. Her own quick heartbeat in her ears, pulsing at the edge of her vision. She was dimly aware of Buffy's lips at the base of her throat, working upwards while, below, her fingers plunged inside Faith over and over and a thumb reached up to find that sensitive node and flick across it. Faith's eyes rolled back with an "oh god" even as she felt teeth grazing across her skin and then felt the other girl stiffen.

Opening her eyes, she found Buffy's close to her own, dark with desire and want and need. Fangs extended. Confusion. The blonde's furrowed brow, shaking her head and passing one fluttering hand across it as if to shield Faith from it.

But the dark slayer gently pulled it away, kissing the fingertips, bringing her own from inside Buffy to nudge a steady tremor against her clit. Buffy's hips still moved with it. She kept her eyes on Faith's. The younger slayer whispered, hardly breathing herself: "It's alright."

"Faith, I can't...oh god...." The plea even as she neared the edge.

"You can, B." Brown eyes looking straight into green. "I trust you. You controlled it before. Worse to deny it." And as she held the blonde's gaze, she quickened the pace of her fingers, seeing Buffy close her eyes, trembling, and then, with a small cry, dip into Faith's neck, gently break the skin and hungrily take the sweet nectar there that was better than any other. And the dark slayer matched the other girl's groan with her own, feeling the blonde's fingers moving inside her so that she was a taut string between her sex and the sweet risk of the bite, pulling tighter and tighter until they both shuddered, cried out each other's names, came, and collapsed into an exhausted tangle in their new bed.

* * *

They woke hours later, when Buffy felt her body responding to the evening coming on. The blonde looked over at the dark slayer murmuring in her reluctance to wake up fully, her arm a hot comfort across Buffy's middle. Buffy leaned over and kissed her forehead, seeing those brown eyes flutter open and find hers. Disbelief for a moment, then remembering, and a sleepy smile.

Buffy returned that smile. "Morning. Or evening...whatever."

"Mmmm." Faith wasn't quite to the forming-words stage of wakefulness yet.

"As much as I hate to move, I'm gonna go grab a shower. I'm all dusty still from the mausoleum and you don't even want to see the bottom of my feet."

"Wasn't gonna say anything."

The blonde gave her a mock scowl as she extracted herself from the bed. "I liked you better when you were monosyllabic."

Faith grinned, turning over on her side to watch the naked beauty throw a silk robe over the body she had so long desired. Buffy caught her watching and let her hips sway a little as she sashayed back over to the bed, leaning over for a kiss. Faith took the opportunity to slip a hand where the robe had fallen open and cup a breast. The blonde shivered a little into the kiss and then reluctantly drew back, her eyes alight.

"I'll hold you to that. We'll take care of Riley's little monster problem, and then I'll hold you to that." With a last lascivious look, she skipped up the stairs towards the prospect of evening.

* * *

Dawn found her as she was toweling off and moved to help her reapply her bandages.

"Riley's downstairs waiting for you."

"Well, I did say he could stay here...." She caught her sister's look. "It's not like that. He's married now, and I'm not interested. Been there."

Dawn just raised her eyebrows, talking to the gauze she was unrolling. "Tell him that. He and Faith are just glaring at each other, and occasionally Sam gets in on the action. Anya's managing to keep the peace by enlisting them all in writing out seating cards."

Buffy had to suppress a laugh. "Bet they're all loving that."

"Well, I have to warn you that calligraphy isn't Faith's strong suit, in case you were hinging your...um, relationship?" She looked at her sister and received a grateful smile and nod in return. "In case you were hinging your relationship on that."

"Thankfully, no."

"Anyway, Riley asked me to tell you that there's some Doctor guy they need to find...he's got the eggs or whatever. Says he thinks he knows where to find him" She drew the comb down through the long strands of Buffy's hair, carefully working out the tangles. Buffy let her, even though her whole being quivered with the need to be outside, to be fighting. Dawn needed this, so Buffy closed her eyes and was there with her. She only opened them when she heard Dawn break the silence. "Can I go with?"

Buffy opened her mouth to say no, but Dawn was faster.

"I know, you're going to say it's too dangerous. But I've been practicing and I've killed several vampires—not that we'll need to tonight because Riley just mentioned one Doctor guy—and let's not forget that the monks made me out of you, so that gives me a head start, I think." She was almost out of breath with it.

How could Buffy say no to those glittering eyes that wanted to do more than sit on the sidelines? Couldn't she understand that? So she indulged her, giving an exaggerated eye roll at her own willingness to be talked into it.

* * *

Between Faith, Dawn, Riley, Sam, and Buffy, they were a big party of awkwardness. Everyone let Riley take the lead with some tracking device or other that beeped occasionally. Buffy noticed Sam had placed herself in between Riley and Faith. Looking over, she saw Faith had picked up on that, too. A smile played at the edges of the dark slayer's mouth and she looked over at Buffy, rolling her eyes. Buffy hoped, for both their sakes, that something was foolish enough to attack them soon before the snide comments started flying.

"Is Spike coming, too?"

Buffy looked over, startled, at Dawn, then to the crypt she hadn't realized they were nearing. Riley and Sam had already gone inside. She gave a muttered "shit!" and hurried inside after them.

It was empty. Well, except for the crowd they amounted to. Riley was poking around, looking inside the fridge.

"You can't seriously be hungry enough to eat whatever Spike's got in there."

Riley whirled. "You know this guy? Why didn't you say something!? That could have saved us some time!"

The blonde slayer's brows furrowed. "You said we were looking for some Doctor guy—"

"Well, this is where he supposedly lives."

Dawn raised her eyebrows. "Spike's got a doctorate?"

Sam shot Riley a look to remind him that she hadn't been in support of bringing the younger Summers along. Riley ignored the look, turning to Dawn. "Not that kind of doctor, Dawn."

"The kind we need to kill, right?" This from Faith, whose look had hardened at the first mention of the bleached vampire's name.

Riley frowned at her. "If necessary, but first we need to find the eggs if he hasn't already—"

"What the fuck are all of you doing in my crypt? Just 'cause I'm dead doesn't mean you can just break and enter all willy-nilly, now does it?"

Everyone whirled to find Spike in the doorway, a Target plastic bag filled with what looked like packets of blood. Was packets of blood, to Buffy's sensitive nose.

"Well, actually...." Faith's stake was already in her hand. Sam's gun wasn't far behind.

Dawn saw both women's weapons and moved between them and Spike. "Wait, wait! That's Spike! He's got a chip!"

Buffy saw Sam's jaw harden and darted in between Sam's gun and Dawn, uncomfortably aware of what it could do, fangs out at the challenge, nonetheless. Riley knew what the gun could do, too, and barked "stand down!", reaching out and pulling the weapon's muzzle to the ground. Sam nearly decked him for that one.

"Riley, we've got two vampires, one of whom deals in black market demon eggs and you're fuckin' telling me to stand down?! There's a civilian kid here—"

Indignant. "I'm not a kid!"

Buffy spared a glance behind her, finding Dawn in a huff, having decided she very much did not like Riley's new wife. Faith was now glowering at Sam herself. Spike just looked vaguely amused by the whole scene.

"So you're back with him, huh?"

Buffy shot Spike a glare. "No, and nobody asked for your input here!"

The blonde vampire talked over her head to the commando in black. "She likes it rough, you know."

"Spike!" This time the blonde slayer whirled on him.

Riley, from behind her. "Buffy, you've slept with him?" He had raised his weapon.

Sam glared at her husband, throwing up her hands. "Oh, fine, now it's okay! What, are you two going to have a pissing contest next?"

Dawn was looking at Buffy, incredulous. "You slept with Spike?" Even Faith was looking at her.

Buffy wanted to claw her eyes out. "For the last time: NO! I swear, Spike...." The last was practically a growl.

"Well, don't get huffy at me...I'm not the one what said it. And you can't just tell Mr. Captain America over there that it isn't me he needs to be worried about, what with you and your rogue slayer bein' all sapphic these days—"

Riley's eyes nearly fell out of his head as he turned to his ex. "You and...?"

The dark slayer was immediately defensive. "And what the hell's wrong with that?"

At almost the same time the light dawned for Sam, who turned to Buffy. "You're gay? That's great! Good for you!"

Buffy just stared at her. "Not really needing your praise, but A for effort."

Riley repeated "You and...Faith?"

Buffy groaned. "Yes. Yes, I am with Faith." She met the dark slayer's eyes with that one. Not the way she'd wanted to declare it. "Yes, I'm with Faith. No, I didn't sleep with Spike, who it appears does not have the eggs we're looking for—"

"Does that mean we can kill him?" Faith looked like this was as good a plan as any to her.

But Dawn's shrill "No!" made even the dark slayer take a step back.

"Where are they?" Sam tried to get this derailed train back on track.

Spike just shrugged. "Gave 'em to a demon at the port in exchange for this lot." He held up the Target bag.

"What kind of demon?"

"Dunno. Big and ugly."

The blonde slayer tried to hurry things up. "And apparently one who appreciated good design at affordable prices...so now that we've cleared this up, can we please go do something productive, like find some demons and beat the shit out of them?"

"Buffy!" Dawn looked over, halfway shocked and halfway thinking her sister had gotten a hell of a lot cooler.

The elder Summers looked over at her. "Don't repeat that." Then back at everyone else. "I know I'm not the only one whose up for this."

Faith shrugged, recognizing the need in her counterpart. "Sounds like a plan to me."

Sam equivocated. "Well, the Suvolte was really our mission—"

"But we have standing orders to protect civilian populations from demons, so I think this fits. Let's go."

Spike hurried into the crypt to let them all past.


	37. Chapter 37

A/N: Thankful for any reviews!

* * *

There was no other word for it. The car ride was uncomfortable. Riley piloted the big, black, testosterone-infused SUV through town towards the docks with two married operatives feeling less than happy about this whole predicament in the front, two slayers antsy for the kill in the middle row, and one teenager on the edge of her seat in the back.

Riley bit the bullet on what he'd been brooding about. "So, Spike seemed very familiar with—"

But he didn't get very far into it before Faith picked up the thread for him. "Still can't see why the wanna-be punk rocker gets a free pass while we're traipsing all over—"

Buffy looked across the seat at her, frowning, eyes shifting significantly towards the younger Summers, then back to the dark slayer. "I'd rather not talk about Spike."

Riley cleared his throat, glancing in the rearview mirror back towards Buffy, tackling the other thing on his mind. "Well, I'm going to go out on a limb and guess it wasn't Spike who bit Faith, anyway. And, Buffy, I can't see that that's a healthy—"

Buffy blushed, her eyes opened wide. Faith's hand went to her neck. Sam just admonished her husband. "Riley, Buffy's sexual fetishes are none of your business."

Faith developed a sudden choking problem.

Riley did an about face, putting his eyes once again on the road and most definitely not on Buffy or her body, whatever fetishes it might indulge in.

Dawn stuck her fingers in her ears. "Oh my god...la, la, la...I'm not hearing this...."

Buffy decisively slapped her hands on her thighs, looking around expectantly. "Alrighty then, let's talk about Spike. Who wants to talk about Spike?"

The dark slayer jumped on that boat. "He's a menace, B. You know that better than anyone and it's about time—"

"What part of 'has a chip' do you people not understand? For crying out loud, Riley, you put it there! Tell her!" Dawn threw her hands up, exasperated.

Dutifully, Riley started in to explain, grateful that this one didn't involve looking in his ex-girlfriend's direction. "Well, the chip should keep him from hurting people...."

"Yeah, but Buffy's not...." Faith stopped, then started up again a little more carefully. "Dawn, you don't know what...." She trailed off as she felt Buffy's hand rest gently on her arm, but her eyes said that wasn't the end of it.

The blonde looked back at her younger sister, the one she had left before. Twice. She ran a hand back through her hair. "Faith, Spike was there for Dawn. After I died...he protected her."

"You died?" This from Riley.

Buffy scowled. "I told you that." Then she thought about it. "Or I was going to tell you, I can't remember. I at least hinted." Then back to Faith. "Anyway, he was there for her when I couldn't be."

Dawn was watching her older sister, a sad smile on her face. "He taught me how to defend myself. And he let me talk about you. Everybody else, they didn't want to...it was too painful. Or maybe they were just trying to resurrect you for whatever...." She trailed off a little there as Buffy's own look turned pained.

Again, from the front seat. "Somebody resurrected you?"

The blonde turned back to face her ex. "Now see, I told you my story was going to be better than yours, Riley. Short version: died, resurrected, died. Won't happen again."

Sam glanced back. "Well, that's dramatic." She seemed to realize that she ought to say something else besides. "Is dying a slayer thing? Faith, have you...?"

The brunette looked over at Buffy, then at Sam. "Um...almost."

Riley remembered: "Didn't Buffy put you in a coma?" He was looking at the blonde slayer as if to force her to remember, too.

Buffy's memory had no problems. Faith spoke for her. "That would be the 'almost.' One of 'em, anyway."

Sam tried to put a chipper spin on it. "But see, you guys have really moved beyond that."

"Demon."

Sam's brows furrowed. "Beg your pardon?"

Buffy repeated. "I said, 'demon.' There. Stop the car." They had made it to the docks and, true to form, there were several shady characters hanging around the dark stacks of freight. The two slayers were already out of the slowing car, sauntering purposefully towards one of those groups. The group decided it didn't like the look of slayers at a saunter and took off at a run, which made it more fun because then the slayers could run after them.

And so they did, Faith scrambling around through the maze of crates, Buffy taking a soaring leap upwards to run over the top of those boxes. They could vaguely hear the other three trailing behind. The blonde shouted back for Riley to watch Dawn, and she knew he would, so she turned again to her pursuit, catching a glimpse of the arm of one demon as he dove behind an enormous spool of rope.

She jumped down next to him, grabbing that arm and hauling him out. He did not like the gleam he saw in her eye, but trusted nonetheless in his two-foot, two-hundred-pound advantage over the diminutive blonde. His red paw of a hand crashed into one side of the crate behind the slayer, barely missing her head. She grabbed the arm with one hand and with the other drove up, forcing his elbow to bend the wrong way. He howled, then slammed his head forward into hers. The blow knocked her back, stunned, a trickle of blood making its way down from one eye. Buffy shook her head, growling as her face reverted to demon, making her opponent pause long enough to give her time to grab his oncoming fist, twist it, and then use it to press him back into the crate on the opposite side.

As the wood splintered, Faith came skittering around a corner, stake out. She took one look at the large red demon and another at Buffy, then raised an eyebrow.

"Still workin' on your first? Kinda slow, B."

Buffy gave her an insulted look. "Just because I like to savor it...." She dodged the demon's attempt at a bull rush, nimbly jumping up to land in a crouch on the top of the crate he crashed headfirst into. "There's nothing wrong with foreplay." With a grin at the younger slayer, she grabbed the edge of the crate in a handstand that she held for a moment before flipping down to land on the demon's shoulders, a knee on either side of his head. He roared, arms flailing to catch at the slayer on him. Faith chuckled at what looked like a game of chicken played in hell. With one very hot devil calling the shots.

Buffy squeezed his neck between her slim, jeanclad thighs. Or tried to until he slammed her back into the corner of a wooden beam that caught her near the exit wound of Sam's bullet. She let out a cry, let go of that monstrous neck, and slid down to the floor.

"B!" Faith yelled. But, before she could move, one of the red demon's red friends grabbed the dark slayer around the shoulders and hauled her back. She growled and spun, catching him with a fist right in the jaw. He growled back and loosed his own fist. Faith darted out of its way and took advantage of the opening to land a solid roundhouse into the middle of his chest and buy herself some time.

She looked over and found the blonde slayer's eyes, glittering back at her in the night. Buffy had just landed her own kick and, though she looked a little unsteady and, if possible, paler than usual, her blow was powerful enough to make her opponent back off a few feet.

Holding her side, she gave Faith a shrug. "Guess he was uncomfortable with being ridden."

Faith let out a breath she hadn't realized she was holding and allowed her relief to translate itself into a wide grin. "Then he doesn't know what he's missin', does he?" Not taking her eyes off Buffy, she stabbed out with her stake, catching the oncoming demon in the gut. He wasn't a vampire, and that wasn't his heart, but, when you get right down to it, a stake in your gut still hurts, and he doubled over with it. "Better hurry, B, or it's gonna be two-zip."

The blonde slayer raised an eyebrow, reaching up behind her to catch the top edge of a crate. She used that grip as leverage to bring her legs up and catch the demon's head between her ankles. She twisted, and down he went with a broken neck.

"She shoots, she scores." She dusted off her hands and looked over at Faith with a sly smile. "I'm telling you, Faith, you don't want to get into a competition with me...I've left people in tears after pictionary."

"Big talk, short stuff—"

Distracted, the dark slayer caught a punch in the stomach, and angrily punched back, right in that gut wound.

Buffy leaned against a crate, amused. "Need some help with that?"

"Nah. Don't trouble yourself, B." But even as she said it, a shot whizzed past her and into the demon's massive thigh. Both slayers looked back and saw Sam lowering her gun, Dawn and Riley at her side. Faith snapped at them. "Hey, get trigger happy on your own—!" But the demon, in its rage at being shot, backhanded the dark slayer, sending her flying over into Buffy who put her arms out at the last moment to catch her counterpart. They tumbled in a heap together.

Riley and Sam started to press in, guns raised, one on each side, Dawn shadowing Riley with her stake out. The slayers looked at them, then looked at each other, and scrambled to their feet, rushing headlong together ahead of the others so that the demon didn't know what hit him when it hit him. And the force of two slayers sent him sprawling on the ground. The synchronized plunge of their stakes finally killed him.

They rolled off of his barrel chest together, Buffy ending up on top of Faith, looking at Faith looking at her. The dark slayer was breathing heavily, feeling every inch of the blonde pressing into her, the thin film of her blouse's silk over skin. Buffy's eyes were dark, her fangs just visible between her parted lips.

"Ahem."

Two heads swiveled at Dawn's attempt to remind her sister that she had an audience. Three pairs of eyes were watching the two tangled slayers. One pair looked as though it was intimately familiar with post-slayage appetites.

Sam broke the silence. "Well, I guess we can't ask him if he knows where the eggs are now."

At those words, both slayers looked over at the unmoving hulk of demon. Faith shrugged. "Reconnaissance not really our specialty."

Sam was giving Riley an exasperated look so he, in turn, gave one to the slayers. "I thought we were all clear on the mission. And, Buffy, you said you wanted to beat some demons up, not kill them."

The blonde looked marginally guilty. "Um...oops?" She looked back over at the demon. "But see, we've determined _he_ didn't have the eggs."

"Mine didn't either." Dawn offered. She caught her sister's raised eyebrow and nodded proudly. "Yep, score one for Summers."

"None on my front." Faith was trying to be helpful and not distracted by the mention of food. Or the slayer not hurrying to get off of her. Her stomach growled anyway.

Sam rolled her eyes. "And our demon was egg-free as well. Which begs the question of whether they're already on a ship somewhere, or back in Sunnydale, and how we're going to find that out."

Buffy lit up. "I think I might have an idea." And it happily involved the possibility of more demon confrontation.

* * *

When they arrived, Willy's was fairly bustling. Patrons actually spilled out the doors along with the music. A throng of demonic activity.

"Hey, isn't that Red?"

And apparently a certain redheaded witch.

"What!?" Buffy and Dawn simultaneously pressed themselves to the windows as the SUV swung into the lot. Sure enough, they caught sight of Willow just as she ducked back inside, a big grin on her face, deep in conversation with a demon in a button-up shirt and khakis.

Sam raised her eyebrows. "Well, she doesn't appear to be in any—" But, by that time, she was talking to an empty car, everyone else having piled out towards the door.

The blonde slayer barreled in through the door, trying in vain to spot Willow, and fairly itching for a fight. She found herself in the middle of a crowd of demons of every sort and a smattering of what appeared to be humans of the redneck variety. It stopped her in her tracks, open-mouthed, which was long enough for Willy to hurry over, hands out in an exaggerated welcoming gesture.

"Slayer, Slayer, Slayer!" He caught sight of Faith behind her. "Pardon me...slayers old and new." His sing-song greeting was loud enough to alert anyone in the bar who wished to be anywhere but in the same room as a slayer. Buffy idly wondered if she was losing her touch: not many of them actually left, though she and Faith did garner a few curious stares. "Come to join the festivities? 'Cause, you know, this is a festive place."

The blonde stared at him. "Huh?"

"Your friend. And any friend of a slayer...." He gestured in the direction of the bar, where, improbably, Xander was sitting, surrounded by a motley assortment of demons and humans. There was much backslapping going on. The young man in the center of it seemed a little confused, but gamely chugged down the frothy glass they put in front of him.

"Xander!" Dawn squealed, rushing over. He nearly spit his drink all over the bar at the sight of her.

"Hey! What are you—?" He saw everyone else standing behind her. "Correction, what are _all_ of you doing here?"

"Xander, you're at Willy's. I think what _you_ are doing is the better question." The blonde's brow was still furrowed and stayed that way as demon who looked vaguely like a humanoid sharpei swung by with the boisterous suggestion that Xander "get some before they lop it off!"

Faith ventured another look around, taking in the drunken male population and the dispute in going on in a far corner about whether Buffy and Faith were slayers or strippers. She crossed her arms and turned back to Xander with a wide grin. "Holy shit. It's a fuckin' bachelor party."


	38. Chapter 38

A/N: Fairly gasping for reviews!

* * *

"You're having a bachelor party? Here? At Willy's?" The younger Summers looked just about flabbergasted. Behind her, Buffy's mouth hung open as she surveyed the room again, this time seeing the crowd for what it was.

Faith chucked her under the chin. "Might wanna close that before the flies come 'round."

Buffy gave her a mock-scowl, snapping her mouth shut. Then she turned to Xander, still confused. "I didn't know...how did we not know...?"

He gave her a sheepish smile. "Kinda last minute, Buff. There were all of these relatives just sitting around our apartment all day getting drunk and An started worrying that something was going to happen that would make it so we wouldn't get our security deposit back...and, anyway, our rehearsal dinner sort of devolved. It was either here or the Bronze and we've got the Bronze booked for the reception tomorrow night." His eyes went wide. "Oh god...tomorrow...." He took a healthy swig from the tankard in front of him, then made a face.

Riley placed a hand on his shoulder. "That's just nerves, you'll be fine."

"Huh. You should've seen _him_." Sam came up next to him, giving Xander a reassuring smile. Riley looked down, almost startled to see her there. "All that military training and his dignity just went right out the window."

Buffy sat down next to her old friend, her brow still furrowed as she studied him. "Is everything alright, Xander?"

He turned and raised his mug in a gesture of toasting and merriment that encompassed the whole group of them. "By golly, I'll make an honest, human woman of her tomorrow!"

The blonde raised an eyebrow. "Yeah, 'cause you guys living in sin was what was really bothering me."

He toned it down a notch, giving her a more personal smile. "It'll be good, Buff, really. Been a long time coming. And nobody can say I don't know what I'm getting into, right?" She gave him a searching look, but saw little she could do but take his word for it right now.

"Who's getting into what?" A very bubbly Willow appeared at Xander's side, slinging an arm around his shoulder. Faith rolled her eyes and wandered off in search of something to drink.

Buffy's glanced over at the dark slayer's retreating ass, then snapped to the present and to Willow's raised eyebrows. Buffy chose to ignore the eyebrows, fixing Willow instead with her confused look, now back firmly in place. "Okay, I get the bachelor party thing, but, unless I'm missing something...."

The redhead cut in, with a grin. "Where are the strippers?"

A pause. "Not really my question. Will, why are _you _here?"

Dawn looked thoughtful. "Do lesbians get bachelor party privileges?"

Xander nodded sagely at the younger Summers. "A question for the ages, the answer to which hopefully involves that earlier mention of strippers."

"Don't be so Neanderthal, Xander." Willow slapped his shoulder, before turning to address the rest of them. "There's no rule saying girls can't go to bachelor parties." Everyone just stared at her. "Well, aside from the name 'bachelor.' And decades of tradition. And possibly a rule." Flushed from her drink, the redhead leaned in to whisper conspiratorially—though, to get over the music, it was less of a conspiracy than a public service announcement. "Anya asked me to keep an eye on Xander."

"Oh." Everyone nodded in understanding at once.

Faith returned with bottles and handed them around, giving a Coke to Dawn, who frowned a little at that, but, at Faith's take-it-up-with-big-sis look, she let it go. Xander just pointed at the bottle. "Gotta warn you, Willy's beer tastes like shit." He looked to his own mug on the bar, then back to everyone else's bottles. "Hey, how'd you get a bottle?"

"Went microbrew."

Buffy looked dubiously down at her beer. "Willy serves—?" But she didn't get to finish her thought before Riley had whipped out his wallet.

"How much do I owe you, Faith?"

The dark slayer just shrugged. "Didn't pay for 'em. Willy and I negotiated a little arrangement where he agreed to provide the brew while I agreed not to harass-slash-pummel any of the patrons until after this party was over." Buffy looked a little put out that there might not be any fights. Faith caught it and shared a little half-smile of sympathy.

Riley reluctantly put his wallet away even as Willow was already asking the obvious question. "You guys came here looking for the eggs?" She looked around. "I don't see any doctor-types in here."

Buffy stepped in to explain before anyone else could. "Long story short: Spike turned out to be the Doctor and then turned out to have already offloaded said eggs."

A glimmer of something hard flicked across Willow's eyes for a moment, but all she said was "oh." Xander supplied the rest. "So you think somebody here might have them? Buff, I know my relatives and soon-to-be relatives aren't necessarily savory types, but I don't think—"

The blonde stopped him. "Xander, I didn't know you were having a bachelor party until we got here. And you have to admit it's a pretty logical place to come to find information about the Suvolte eggs."

"Well, I doubt you'll—"

"Suvolte eggs?" The clean-cut demon from earlier peered around Xander's shoulder.

Willow clapped her hands together. "Oh, everyone, meet Krevlin! He's a friend of the bride."

Faith shook the hand held out to her. Riley pressed closer, scowling at Faith until, with a shrug, she withdrew her hand. Riley's own hand went down to his gun. "You know about the Suvolte eggs?"

Willy appeared behind the counter, glancing nervously from the commando to Faith to the rest of his customers, hissing at Riley. "Whoah! No guns in here! Faith, we had a deal!"

The dark slayer leveled him a look. "Strictly speaking, we had a deal that _I_ wouldn't do anything. _He_, however," jerking a thumb at Riley, "is not my business."

"Where're the eggs, Krevlin?" Riley was undeterred, and his wife was right behind him.

The demon moved back, hands up in the universal symbol for "not me." "Hey, we can get you some, too. Saving the last one for Xander, but...." He gamely tried out a grin and slapped Xander on his back. "...well, you don't mind sharing, now do you?" He motioned to Willy, who fiddled around behind the bar for a moment, and then produced a frothy drink on the counter to match Xander's.

Everyone just stared at the two mugs. Buffy ventured up off her seat to look down in one, and Faith came up right behind her, leaning over the smaller girl. Both slayers made a face.

Faith supplied the commentary. "Now that's just fuckin' gross."

Xander looked a little green.

Krevlin plowed on, undaunted. "It's known to promote virility. And it makes the beer delightfully foamy."

Now it was Sam's turn to have her mouth open. Faith didn't bother reminding her to shut it. Riley's wife finally found her voice. To Xander. "You drank them?" To Krevlin and Willy. "You put them in _beer_?"

Krevlin tried to backpedal a little. "Well, they also make a lovely hollandaise, but the situation didn't really seem to call for that."

Willow tried to put a bright face on it. "At least we won't have any little baby Suvoltes running around. See, everyone's happy!"

Xander groaned. "'Cept me. Don't forget about me." He looked as though he might gag, then looked wide-eyed over at Riley. "Wait...it's not gonna be like _Alien_ where one of those things comes out of my chest, is it?"

Riley blew a big breath of air out of his cheeks. "No, Xander. I think you're safe on that one. Not sure what the heck I'm gonna tell my commander, but...."

"Tell him no more eggs, problem solved. I think that deserves a toast all around." Willow offered. "To Xander!" Everyone raised their bottles. Xander looked as though he was about to raise his mug and then, thinking better of it, grabbed Buffy's beer instead.

For which he garnered a "Hey!" that he ignored as he consummated the toast with a long, mouth-cleansing swig, before giving her an eyebrow.

"Don't get huffy with me, missy. You and alcohol don't mix."

"B's a lightweight, huh?" Faith was still standing right behind Buffy. The blonde could feel the slight press of the dark slayer's hip into her leg.

"Let's just say she has been known to become less than civilized."

The corner of Faith's mouth tipped up. "Oh, really?"

The blonde scowled first in Faith's direction, then in Xander's. "That was magic beer!"

At that, Faith turned a sharp glance in Willow's direction. But the redhead held her hands up. "Not me! Don't look at me!" The dark slayer subsided a little, muttering "methinks the lady doth..." until she felt the blonde's hand on the small of her back.

Dawn chimed in. "There was also that time at the frat party. With the reptile thing." Seeing her sister's frown, she pasted on a sweet smile and raised her Coke in a salute.

"My drink was totally drugged!"

"There weren't any reptiles at our—"

The blonde slayer glanced at Riley. "Oh, for crying out loud, not your frat." With that, she grabbed her beer back from Xander and took a long drink from it. Longer than was prudent, as she came up sputtering. Faith chuckled, slapping her back. Buffy cut her a look. "Don't all of you have some bachelor-party-esque things to be doing instead of rehashing boring old Buffy tales?"

Faith winked at Xander, motioning Willy for another beer. She passed the bottle to the celebrating bachelor and draped an arm around his shoulder. "Think that's our cue to find us a pool table and see how many of these demons we can shark." She ran her eyes over Riley. "And here's our first mark. C'mon, you two." And, with that, she herded Xander, Riley, and Sam towards the back room, turning back to wink at the blonde who was caught watching her go.

* * *

"So," Willow began brightly, "who wants to lay bets on how quickly Faith wipes the floor with them?"

Buffy and Dawn glanced at each other, shaking their heads. The blonde spoke for both of them. "Not even gonna take that bet, Will. I suspect Riley's way out of his league with that one."

The redhead nodded, raising an eyebrow at Buffy. "And I suspect his ego will be even more bruised at losing to his ex's new lesbian lover."

Buffy coughed. Now Dawn and Willow were both giving her an eyebrow. "Went down the wrong way. Ahem...well, when you put it that way...."

Dawn undertook to bring Willow up to speed. "Oh, Riley's already expressed his concern over Buffy's penchant for biting as foreplay."

"Dawn!" The blonde slayer was turning red.

"Don't 'Dawn!' her...I saw you lusting after a certain slayer's ass earlier."

"Will!" Now she was fully red. "That's it. I'm cutting both of you off!"

Dawn shook the Coke in her face. "Not drinking, remember?"

Buffy frowned. "Clearly a caffeine overload, then. And, Will...wait, what _are_ you drinking?"

Willow frowned down at the drink in her hand, trying to remember. "It has an umbrella. Something fruity and good. Without demon eggs. Possibly vodka is involved."

"Thought Giles said you were supposed to be practicing your self-control."

The redhead grew indignant, cheeks pink. "Hey, no throwing stones! You get to drink, and you've got a far worse track record than me!" She pointed down at Buffy's empty beer on the counter, and the second that Willy had just brought her.

Buffy looked at her drink, then shrugged. "Good point. Sorry. And it is a party, isn't it? Cheers!" She clinked glasses with the other girls.

Willow continued the toast. "And I'm celebrating potential progress with Tara." At the other girl's expectant looks, she went on with a big smile. "We went today to look for your little trio of dimwits together." The blonde slayer's mouth set at the thought of them. Willow saw it, but misinterpreted. "Don't worry, Buffy, we didn't do anything dangerous and there was no magic involved. They've already moved out of the house they were in, so Tara and I just checked it out and came back home." Buffy forced her hands to unclench and motioned for the redhead to continue. "And anyway, Anya wants both of us to help her with her dress tomorrow morning, so there'll be wedding bliss in the in air, and romance, and a reception tomorrow night with dancing—all in all, lots of possibilities for wooing. Hence, my happiness!"

"Yay! Willow and Tara happiness!" Dawn swooped in for a big hug.

Buffy followed her with a smile. "I'm glad things are working out for you guys, Will. At least I'll be able to see the cute dancing closeness at the reception."

Dawn nudged her shoulder. "And maybe a certain brunette will catch the bouquet for you!"

All of them stopped to imagine that picture. And then laughed at the absurdity of it.

* * *

It was a raucous crowd back around the pool table, feeding off of Faith's skillful, sexy slaughter of every opponent she and Xander faced. Riley hadn't yet managed to succeed in taking her, but he kept slapping his quarters down with thin-lipped determination to do so.

From her perch atop a stack of boxes, Buffy just enjoyed watching Faith move around the table, considering her shots, bending over and stretching out across that green felt, her breasts pulling at the fabric of her tank top as she did so. For certain, anticipated shots, Buffy caught sight of the valley between those breasts, the promising curve. She could've sworn Faith set herself up for those just so she could catch Buffy looking.

By the time Willy yelled last call, there were only a handful of drunken stragglers left, mostly collapsed over the bar. The Scoobies in the back continued unabated, Xander deciding this was the first time he'd ever won this much in his life.

In exchange for another, last round, Buffy attempted to help a demon win a longshot bet. Faith and Xander were deep in a game with Riley and Sam again. One that actually appeared somewhat close. The blonde slayer sauntered over behind Faith as she set up to knock the eight ball in, leaning over, careful not to touch, as badly as she wanted to. She whispered in the dark slayer's ear a husky "How long are you gonna make me wait for a taste" just as she shot, so that Faith's ball went wide and she didn't care and turned instead, quickly enough so that the slightly tipsy, blonde slayer had to grab on to her to avoid falling. With a grin, Faith kept her own hands off, glancing down at Buffy's body still pressed into her.

"Did ya want somethin', B? 'Cause I didn't realize pool was a contact sport."

Behind her, a disconcerted Riley flubbed his shot and left an opening for Xander to pull off the win. And do a snoopy dance of victory. At which point, Dawn yelled over for Buffy and Faith to get a room and the blonde, embarrassed, blushed again, and went to recover the round she was owed before the demon welched. As she made her way to the bar, she saw Faith slip past her out the front for a smoke. Grabbing her beer, she gave a glance to the room where everyone else was still playing before she hurried after Faith in a way she hoped didn't look like she was hurrying.

* * *

It may not have looked like hurrying, but it sure looked like clumsiness as she tripped over the doorsill on the way out, sloshing a third of her beer down her front. She gave a little shriek at the cold.

"Not gonna strike fear in the hearts of anyone with that."

Buffy saw the slayer standing in the parking lot, cigarette in hand, watching her. "You could be helpful, you know." Buffy shrugged out of her jacket and held out what was left of her beer for the other woman to take both. Faith did. In one fluid movement, the blonde slayer pulled the blouse over her head, looking down at its wet folds in disgust. "There is nothing worse than clammy silk."

"Think I'm beginning to understand why your friends keep the booze away from ya."

Buffy scowled, dabbing at her chest with her wadded shirt. "I'm usually a little more suave than this."

"I was thinking more of you shedding clothes in the parking lot."

Buffy looked down at her bra as if surprised to see it. Faith looked, too, admiring the smooth play of muscle under that pale skin, the swell of those breasts, the hollows along her collar bone. By the time she made it back up to Buffy's face, she met the dark green eyes there, hungry as they had been all night.

"You complaining, F?"

"Didn't say—"

"I didn't realize this was a strip club." Both heads swiveled to find Riley standing in the light from the bar door. Buffy couldn't see his face, but she saw the vest he tossed to her. "Might want to put this on...everybody's on their way out."

Buffy handed it back to him, but took her jacket back from Faith and put it on, holding it shut with one hand. She opened her mouth to explain, but shut it again as the gang trooped out, making their way to Riley's SUV. Buffy said her goodbyes, kissed Xander on the cheek and told him she'd see him at the reception. Faith gave him a handshake half-hug and said she'd be there beforehand to help. Buffy declined Riley's offer of a ride.

Instead, the two slayers watched them drive off.

"Sorry if you wanted to ride back in style. I'm afraid you're stuck hoofing it with me now."

Faith shrugged, extinguishing her cigarette on the ground. "Not like Sunnydale's that big. And figures you might like to enjoy the last two hours or so of nighttime."

The blonde raised an eyebrow at her counterpart as she started walking. "Enjoying it was sort of my plan. Especially after you were being all sexy tonight with the pool."

Faith gave her a grin, falling in beside her. "No idea what you mean, B." She caught sight of the lace of Buffy's bra from where her coat had fallen open a little. "'Course, I've gotta say I didn't expect it would be this easy to get ya outta your clothes."

"Oh, no, you don't get skill points for that. I just thought maybe you needed a head start or something."

"Mighty big of you."

"Well, I try."

And so they made it all of a hundred feet into a park before their hands were on each other, and they came together under the shadow of a large tree. Buffy leaned into it as Faith's hands parted the jacket and found the naked skin underneath, ran hands over that flat expanse, up and over the lace's edge, skipping back to unfasten.

The blonde's hand cupped Faith's cheeks, kissing her with all of the evening's need even as the dark slayer's hands made her groan, dipping down inside her jeans and pulling up the wetness there to draw it in circles around her nipple before Faith's mouth bent down to lick it off. And Faith closed her eyes, hearing her own name out of the blonde's mouth over and over, every time a declaration. And Faith went further, trailing her tongue down to Buffy's belly button, across those firm muscles, kissing the shallow dips by the hip bones, hands working to pull the jeans down and panties aside so that her tongue could dart in to taste almost before Buffy knew what was happening and could only let out a soft cry up to the stars as that tongue was there one moment and then gone the next while hands reached up to brush across every inch of her and Faith's mouth was kissing its way back down.

But Buffy slid down the tree until she was kneeling in front of Faith, face to face. Kissing her again, even as her hands fumbled at the button of Faith's jeans, unworking it and the zipper, reaching her own hand in to feel how ready Faith was for her, kissing Faith's eyelids, bending in to whisper that she wanted to it do it together, the two of them. The dark slayer's eyes came open then, brown looking into green, so close, wide-eyed, amazed at how far they'd come to be so close, hardly breathing so it wouldn't stop, and both fumbling to rid the other of all the rest of their clothes so that they were naked and perfect to each other under the moonlight, shifting until Faith's mouth hovered over Buffy's sex and with a groan found that slick slit again even as Buffy found Faith's, her tongue tentative, teasing, humming with the moans that caught in her throat at the other girl's touch, moving faster as Faith's hips bucked upwards to meet her.

They couldn't have been closer, lean bodies pressing even as their tongues tasted every part of the other, and their mouths closed on each sensitive nub and sucked, and the cries from both of them mingled under the moonlight, faster and faster with that exquisite pull until, in a shuddering climax, both came together.

And the stars above were the stars in their heads as they collapsed into each other, bodies trembling with the aftershocks of their love-making, mouths murmuring into each other's skin, hands fumbling to pull them closer against the cool of the night, staying that way until the morning hurried them home.


	39. Chapter 39

A/N: Thanks to everyone still reading! This is turning out to be rather a marathon, isn't it? Hope I'm not going to slow for y'all...I get kinda caught up in it.

* * *

"Just because you hang them way over there in the corner, doesn't mean you guys aren't still going to have to wear them later."

Willow, Tara, and Dawn glanced up from the mound of flowers on the floor, over into the corner of the basement where the three bridesmaid dresses hung, in all their greenish-turquoise glory. They looked back at Buffy, who was sitting cross-legged on her bed, smiling broadly.

Willow made a face. "You know, you're ruining the pre-wedding glow that's hanging over this group."

"There's a pre-wedding glow here?" Giles looked up. The folding table in front of him was filled with pieces of pastel mesh, ribbon, and little chocolate bon-bons.

"Yeah, and it's called the burning in my fingers." Faith was sitting next to him, tying little bows around the little favor packets as Giles handed them to her. "Do you have to make these things so tiny?"

"This is the size I was told they were to be. I believe the idea is more dainty than sack-of-loot, Faith." A pause. "And I'll just register my preference to be doing a task more suited to my talents with a drawn out sigh once again." Giles sighed.

"Well, I for one think it's sweet she wanted all of us in the wedding."

Willow and Dawn just looked at Tara, who was calmly affixing a boutonniere to its little stick-pin.

The redhead put a hand on the other girl's arm. "Tara, this is Anya we're talking about. I think she may just have a long train that she needs several people to carry." She realized where her hand was, and left it there. She rushed on to cover her blush. "On the plus side, if last night's party is any indication, everyone will be too drunk to notice the dresses."

Dawn offered: "Maybe moths will get them first." She looked over sharply at her older sister's snort. "Hey, don't you still have your dress? I think I'll just suggest to Anya that you really ought to wear it at the reception." She unfolded her legs and made as if to go.

Buffy held her hands out. "Oh no you don't! We wouldn't want the...um....confusion that sort of thing would cause, you know, with people all like 'who's that girl?' and 'she wasn't a bridesmaid' and 'interloper!' It would just be bad. Better for you guys to just present a unified, bridal-party front."

"B, nobody's goin' to war."

Dawn's brow crinkled. "Says the girl who weaseled out of wearing a bridesmaid dress."

Faith chucked a bon-bon at the younger Summers. "I didn't weasel anything. I just said no and she—"

"What _are_ you wearing anyway?" Buffy's green eyes were on her, and Faith raised an eyebrow in return, her mouth curving into a grin as she opened her mouth to reply.

But was preempted by Giles. "If this conversation goes anywhere even remotely sexual, I will leave this basement and you will have to finish tying these favor bags yourself, Faith."

The dark slayer considered Englishman's threat and the mountain of pastel ribbon bearing down on her and decided she didn't want to risk it. She split the difference: "Let's just say it's somethin' a little more me."

Buffy opened her mouth with her own sly smile, baring her fangs ever so slightly. But Giles gave her a warning look, so she shut it again.

Willow stuck out her lower lip. "See, why couldn't I have tried obstinacy! Maybe then I wouldn't have to look like something the Little Mermaid threw up." Tara chuckled at the redhead's pout. "I'm not even a bridesmaid! Best men aren't supposed to be all flouncy. Best men are dignified."

"Hey, I'm lining up on Xander's side, too, and I still got stuck with the shit task over here." Faith paused, looking around. "And why the fuck isn't Riley down here helping?"

The blonde slayer's eyes went from sultry to wide. "_Riley_'s in the wedding party?"

Dawn shrugged. "Something about how the pictures would turn out." She turned to Faith. "And, to answer your question, I think I saw him and Sam debriefing." At Buffy's alarmed look: "Not with _each other_, perv. With some guy on a video phone."

"I can't believe he's in the wedding party and I'm not." Now it was Buffy's turn to stick out her lower lip over the bouquet she was just finishing. Faith gave a little smile: the lip was almost cute enough to bite off.

Tara passed Buffy several boutonnieres to put in dish of water along with the bouquets Willow, Dawn, and Buffy had managed to finish. "I don't think you could fill out the dress if you were a pile of dust, Buffy."

Willow held a bunch of flowers out to her so that the blonde could wrap the stems in ribbon. "And see, you're helping here: Buffy bundles bridesmaid's bouquets. It's a whole lot of alliterative helpfulness."

"Wish I could do more. Like get out of this room." A pause. "Not that I don't love you guys." The blonde slayer twirled a daisy between her fingers before putting it behind her ear. "But I guess there's a lot to be said for flowers. They'll be making someone look pretty." She held out the finished bouquet to the room, then held it in front of her as though she were walking down the aisle herself. Dawn offered a considered nod of approval. Faith watched the pink of the petals lend color to the blonde's pale face as she closed her eyes for a moment, before opening them again, putting the flowers away in water. "So what's next in the job jar for you guys?"

Faith talked around a piece of ribbon stuck between her lips. "Got some call this morning about a missing cufflink. Potential disaster apparently." She wound the ribbon around the bunch of mesh, sticking her tongue out one side of her mouth as she tied. "Figure I'll go over when we're done here and hopefully somebody's found 'em by then because I'm sorta outta my league with that stuff."

"Ooh, cufflinks! Our Xander's going fancy."

Giles sighed. "Now see, there were jobs involving cufflinks that I could have done."

The dark slayer, incredulous. "You wanted to look around his apartment for man jewelry? The same apartment his family and her family are already converging on?"

The former Watcher thought for a moment. "Point taken."

"Yeah, I'm just going to help with the cummerbund and I'm plannin' on wearing riot gear." A pause, a twinkle in her eye as she looked over at the blonde slayer. "You still got that shit Riley gave you, B?"

The blonde raised an eyebrow. "Don't even."

Willow was starting to sweep up the flower leavings. "At least we're just supposed to meet Anya at the lodge ahead of time. That's a nice neutral zone, right?" She looked around for more to put away or fiddle with, finding nothing. She scrunched her face up, following Tara and Dawn's eyes over to where the dresses were looming. "Well, guess we can't put this off anymore."

* * *

After a little slayer strength saved the world from seeing where Xander's pants met his shirt, Faith and Xander made it to the Sunnydale Bison Lodge.

Things were already looking testy.

There was a near argument going on between Mr. Harris and a demon with tentacles dangling off his chin. Clem defended the benefits of raising children in the "circus" tradition to an Episcopalian tolerance that was looking somewhat worn around the edges.

"I swear I told them not to start serving alcohol until after the ceremony." Xander frowned, seeing his father knocking a glass down on the bar and asking for another. He straightened himself up to go over there, but was waylaid by his mother, who looked rather downtrodden and wondered why she was set to be seated in the third row.

Faith just stood there in the middle of it all, wondering what in the hell one was supposed to do at these sort of things.

Dawn appeared at her elbow, looking up her and down. "Oh, I am _so _jealous!" Faith turned and did a double-take at the dress, but, at the look the younger Summers shot her, resolved to keep her mouth firmly shut. "And I'll bet you Riley and Sam are going to be jealous, too."

"Yeah? I haven't seen the beefstick yet." Then it hit her that Dawn had said Sam, too. "Wait, she's in this, too? B's gonna fuckin' love that." Then she looked at the dress again and couldn't help herself. "Or maybe it's actually pretty funny, in a sick sorta way."

There was a wicked grin on the young girl's face. "I'll just say that Anya rounded up a tux for Riley and Sam's wearing Buffy's gown."

Faith chuckled at the thought of that. The two of them surveyed the lobby together.

Dawn tried to be philosophical. "You know, I think we should count ourselves lucky here if no one dies or gets turned into something really unpleasant."

Faith glanced over at her.

Dawn continued, by way of explanation. "Vengeance demon history. Don't mention the "w" word around those two." She pointed over at Halfreck and D'Hoffryn, who were looking at a program.

Faith looked confused. "Whore?"

"No, wish."

Faith snorted. "Between them and Red, this should be fun."

"Oh no, Willow's looking magic-free." Dawn leaned in, whispering. "She and Tara are sort of giggly and hand-hold-y. Check it out." She pointed in the direction of a rear hallway. Faith looked back and saw Xander deep in conversation with an old man, so she exited stage left and found herself in a quiet hallway, looking through the half-open door at the bride, the two witches at her feet.

She caught the tail end of the vows. "Blah, blah, blah misogynistic. Blah, blah... 'I do however entrust you...um, with my heart. Take care of my heart, won't you please? Take care of it because it's all that I have. And, if you let me, I'll take care of your heart, too.'"

And for a moment Faith got it. And Willow and Tara were looking at each other. And even Anya seemed like she'd surprised herself.

But then the bride-to-be stumbled on: "I'll protect it and tend to it like a little stray. Wait, no. Like a little mangy stray that—" She caught sight of dark slayer in the mirror. "Oh, Faith! Tell me how I look!"

The dark slayer edged her way in, staying next to the door. There was a lot of lace going on, and a rather high-strung woman in the middle of it all. But she looked the former vengeance demon over. "Gotta say, ain't too shabby."

Anya sighed. "See, it just means so much from a lesbian."

Tara piped up. "You look lovely, really, you do."

"Oh, so now everyone wants to jump on that bandwagon. Well...that's okay with me!" She took a practice swirl for them. "So can I go see Xander yet? I bet he looks lovely as well!"

"Lovely probably wasn't what he was goin' for."

"Handsome, then. My handsome husband. It rolls off the tongue."

Willow stood up, taking Tara's hand and pulling her to her feet as well. "And speaking of the man-of-the-hour, I think we'll go and see how he's doing. I'm sure there are best man-ish things that are supposed to be done. Jolly-good-fellow pep talks and whatnot." The two witches edged out the door. The slayer started to follow them.

"Oh, Faith! A fresh opinion! I think Willow and Tara were just being nice, which is sweet of them but not very helpful. So, how do these sound for my vows?"

And so she launched into them again, hardly hearing Faith's not quite fast enough "um, I'm not really...."

* * *

Mercifully, it wasn't long until Faith felt a tap on her shoulder. Turning around she found Tara motioning her to come out in the hallway, casting nervous glances over at the still-talking, pacing bride-to-be. Anya was pretty much on autopilot and didn't notice as the brunette ducked out.

"Gonna have to owe you big time for—"

"Xander's missing." Tara whispered, eyes still darting back to the room they'd just left.

"What the—? Whaddya mean he's missing? He can't be missing! It's his freakin' day here!"

"All I know is that we can't find him and Willow said I should come get you."

The two of them were hurrying down the hallway back towards the lobby where guests were starting to filter in towards their seats in the other room. The redhead caught them as they entered, flashing an overblown smile back at the guests before turning to the two of them with wide eyes.

"I can't find him anywhere, and there isn't much of an anywhere he could be because the lodge isn't that big and it's kind of hard to miss a guy in a tux because not everybody wears those and I can't think and ohmygod Dawn!" Willow reached out and grabbed Dawn, jerking her over to their little group. Seeing a few of the guests staring curiously, she wrapped Dawn in a big bearhug as if she hadn't seen her in five years.

"Wow...um...you know, the open bar really was supposed to be for after—"

"This is important, Dawn! We can't find Xander and we think he might possibly be missing but we're not exactly sure. You've been out here...did you see where he went?"

"Xander's—? Oh god...um...yeah, I think I did see him. He was here, then he was talking to someone. A really old man, I think. He may have left with him, but I'm not sure."

"A relative?" Faith broke in, feeling the redhead practically vibrating next to her.

"I dunno, maybe? It would have to be on Anya's side, though, because it didn't look like someone Xander knew." Dawn paused, thinking. "Of course, nobody really ever knows all the people who show up at—"

The redhead was not going to be sidetracked. "Which way did they go?"

Dawn pointed towards a side door. By the time she opened her mouth, Willow was already walking quickly that way. Faith started to jog after her, turning back only long enough to tell Tara and Dawn to try to stall and keep Anya in the dark. She caught up with Willow in a dim hallway, finding her hurrying up to an old man who was moseying along, looking into each doorway.

He smiled sweetly as he saw them coming. "Excuse me, but could you perhaps direct me to the bride? I'm an old family friend, and I would just like to—"

"What the hell did you do with Xander?" Willow didn't pull her punches. Faith had to admire that.

"That nice young man? Why, nothing—"

"Oh, can it. We know you were the last person to see him."

"Ah, but I didn't _do_ anything to him. It's certainly not _my_ doing that he left."

"Fuck!" Faith muttered. "You talk, Red...I'm gonna go find Xander before he does something stupid."

Willow opened her mouth as if to protest, but snapped it shut at the smug grin on the old man's face. "Right." She wanted to knock it right off. "I'll see if I can get anything more out of this guy."

And so the slayer was gone, bursting through the door out into the afternoon sun, scanning the Sunnydale street for any sign. Her slayer vision picked out a black-clad figure far down the block, and she took off in that direction.

* * *

It did not take her long to catch up, slayer speed being what it is and the slow amble of a man walking away from his wedding being what it is.

"I was gonna say the aisle was back that way, but somethin' tells me you know that."

"Faith." It was an acknowledgement that she was there, but nothing more. His eyes looked like they weren't seeing her as she fell to walking beside him. "I can't go back there. I can't do it."

"Figured. But I'm thinking that if I don't show back up with you, Red's gonna do that black-haired, freaky thing again, so you're gonna have to give me somethin' that convinces me that's the better option here."

The young man winced, but kept walking. "I saw our future."

Faith missed a step with that one. "You what? Jesus, does everyone one of you Scoobs have a super power?"

One corner of Xander's mouth saw the joke in that. "Not now, but maybe some me in the future." Seeing that he'd lost the slayer with that one, he sighed, going on. "There was an old guy, at the wedding...it was me, only older."

"And not looking really like an older you." At her words, Xander looked over, sharply. "I'm just sayin'. Red and I found him. She's talking to him now."

"But he knew things. He showed me things. My future. Me and Anya. Kids. Years from now."

Faith was walking beside him again. She took out a cigarette, offered one and had it declined, then lit hers before she spoke. "Lemme guess. Not so rosy, since you're out here and not back in there."

Xander pointed a finger like a gun. "Bingo."

They both walked in silence.

Faith broke it. "You don't know, you know. Could happen. Could not happen. You don't know."

He shook his head. "Looked too much like the family I came from to not be me one day. You didn't see it, Faith."

"No, but I did see your father at the lodge and, gotta say, not much family resemblance." Xander didn't look at her. "You think I don't know a shitty family life when I see it?" He did look up at that, remembering the bits and pieces of a history he and Willow and Buffy had managed to piece together for Faith. What little they'd gotten wasn't good. They'd always been afraid to ask for more. Afraid she'd lie or afraid to know, he wasn't sure. Her eyes were dark and straight ahead.

"Aren't you afraid you'll just be the same?"

When she spoke, her voice was quiet. "Yeah."

Xander sighed. "What do you do about that?"

The slayer took a drag on her cigarette. "Try hard not to be."

"See, that's just it! Apparently I don't try hard enough. Whatever I do, it doesn't work. I saw it." He couldn't look at her when he said it. "Faith, I hurt her. I can't do that to her."

Faith sniffed. "Look, I'm not gonna take you back if you don't want to go. But if you keep walking, don't let it be because you're going to hurt her. Everybody hurts everybody, Xander. Sorry, but that's just the way it is." She flicked her ash onto the ground. "Whatever the hell that guy told you about anything else, he was right that you'll hurt her. You're bound to, even if it's just in a thousand little ways."

"Then why in the world would I—?" He threw up his hands, ready to keep on walking forever.

"Because you care." She turned her brown eyes on him. "You care that you're going to hurt her."

"That doesn't—"

She stopped, taking his shoulder and stopping him, too. Firmly. "Yes, it does. It matters. That's the one part you can do something about." Then muttering almost to herself as she crushed her cigarette into the sidewalk. "Spent too fuckin' long doin' the opposite. Count yourself lucky, Xander. You never even thought about _not _caring."

He stayed still, squinting into the sun, up the street, the houses and yards, the people in them. He looked over at Faith again. "You know, I think we both have a habit of selling ourselves short."

She gave him an eyebrow. "Not if nobody's buyin'."

He shot her an eyebrow right back. "Oh, I don't know, Faith." And tried out a smile. "Seems like blondes are in the market these days."

She had to admit he might have a point with that one and couldn't help but give up a half-smile in return.

"C'mon, Faith. I think there might be some people waiting on us."


	40. Chapter 40

A/N: Putting songs in my fiction usually isn't my thing, but it just seemed appropriate this time. Hope y'all enjoy!

* * *

Faith and Xander rushed back in to the hall, skidding to a stop in the middle of the lobby. Through the double doors, Dawn stood behind the pulpit, desperate enough to be trying "yo mama" jokes on the crowd. A paper program airplane floated in front of her and dive-bombed into a flower arrangement. As soon as she spotted Faith and Xander, she came running down the aisle as fast as her mermaid-encased legs would allow. She didn't ask any questions, just threw her arms around Xander.

"I know, I know, you're grateful I saved you from making the mistake of a career in comedy."

Dawn hugged him harder.

Willow joined the embrace. "I'll say this for the Y chromosome...it looks good in a tux."

He smiled into her hair. "Well, your double X's don't look too bad there, either."

"Everything alright?" She looked up at him.

His eyes looked over and met Faith's, then traveled back down to Willow's. "Yeah. Just got kinda freaked out. Who'd a thought Faith would be the level-headed one in a wedding crisis?"

The redhead glanced over, eyebrows raised. To which the dark slayer replied that if the whole slaying thing didn't work out, she might try wedding planning.

"Psst!" Tara poked her head out of the hallway where Anya was, the worried look falling from her brow as she saw Xander. Willow gave her a big smile and a thumbs up. Tara gave one in return as the preparatory music started up in the background.

Xander paled a little. "Oh man, does An—?"

Willow shook her head, steering him and Faith off around back to where they would enter for the ceremony. "She doesn't know. Tara is practiced in the art of distraction. Which really just means she dragged Giles in to listen to Anya go through her vows again."

"Remind me to buy that man a bottle of scotch."

Faith talked to the redhead's retreating back. "Shouldn't we do something about the—?"

The groom cut in, stopping. "Right! He was me, Will. Older, but...okay, well, hopefully not me. A possible me. A me I would like to avoid becoming. But he was here." He looked around the empty hall, as though he'd find him.

The redhead cut him off, her face carefully blank. "Well, he's not now." Faith looked over sharply, catching something in the tone. Xander opened his mouth, but Willow just shrugged. "And, trust me, whatever he said he was, he wasn't."

"You mean none of that was real?" His relief was written all over his face.

Willow gave him a bright smile. "Nope!" She got him moving forward again. "And you'll be much more handsome when you're that age."

Slayer on alert, Faith had half-turned around. "Demon, then? We oughta...."

But the witch pulled her back around. "He's gone."

"He just left? That seems a little—"

But then they were in the little anteroom and there was no time to pursue it and all Faith could register was that whoever Anya borrowed Riley's tux from was about ten inches shorter than Riley and, if the hole in the seat was any indication, had a tail. Then they were on their way out in front of all those eyes. Xander, then Willow, then Faith, then Riley. Lining up at the front, hearing the music start to play.

Faith leaned over and whispered in the soldier's direction. "You look like you jumped in your pants too far." Riley played stoic. "And your underwear's showin'." His brow furrowed.

Faith snickered until Willow glowered back at her and the music had cued the bridesmaids. Then Willow and Faith were both snickering at Buffy's dress on the much taller Sam, with its ruffled hem at mid-calf and two thin ankles poking out. Sam was succeeding less at stoic.

But suddenly there was Anya, looking like every vision of a bride, with the sun coming in the lodge windows, catching her blonde curls as she walked slowly on Giles' arm to the front. The soundtrack behind her. And there was no snickering then.

For a moment, Faith had a vision of Buffy, what she would look like, if there could be sun and flowers and all of this. The veil thrown back. Smiling. Light on her face. Happiness.

She blinked, rubbing at her eyes, missing Willow's incredulous stare.

Looking again, Faith found Anya at the spot Giles had escorted her to, across from Xander. The two of them were taking their vows, saying them right to each other, face to face. Whatever else the audience was, it was paying attention then. It was witnessing like it was supposed to. Everyone, because it all happened right in front of them, out in the open, all that promise and commitment, they saw it, and everyone there had the thought that it was the rightest thing you could imagine, the voices of those two young people quivering, and smiling for better and for worse.

Some thought it could be them one day.

Others hardly dared.

* * *

By the time Buffy walked into the Bronze, the place was packed with guests in their wedding formal wear, ties already loosened and purses left on random tables and in booths as the guests gravitated to the dance floor and the bar.

"You old married man." She leaned in and caught Xander by surprise as he shared a drink with Willow and Tara. He gave her a big grin as he hugged her. "Guess that means you're off the market, huh?"

"Yeah, Buff. Sorry to say we're stuck now with a sordid affair."

"Who's having an affair?" Anya returned from making her rounds with the guests. Xander reached around her waist and pulled her close.

"Me and Buffy, in the sarcastic, not-happening sense."

She brushed some dust off the front of her dress. "Now see, on any other day that would be upsetting, but I just can't be upset today because I got to marry my best friend!"

The blonde vampire and slayer smiled. "Congratulations, Anya. I'm so sorry I couldn't see it."

"Well, everyone apparently prefers you intact." Anya took in Buffy's little black dress. "And it's a good thing you weren't there...I might have been tempted to marry you instead. If I weren't in love with Xander and if it were legal in California, that is."

"Um...thanks?"

"You do look great, Buffy."

Buffy looked over to where Willow was sitting next to Tara, their hands casually brushing as they lay on the tabletop. She refrained from arching an eyebrow at the redhead, and instead slowly pirouetted for them all. The dress clung to her thin frame, flaring a little as it fell to mid-thigh, setting off the paleness of her skin. From behind, the dress tied behind her neck and dipped down to reveal the sweep of her back. And for a moment, she felt like a girl again, from her strappy heels, to her little pink handbag, to the waves piled loosely on the top of her head.

"Yep, I'd say so myself, Buff, if I wasn't afraid the old ball-and-chain here would make me just as much of a woman as you are."

Anya just looked at Xander, unable to get the smile off her face. "Wow. I can't believe how unready I am to hit you for that! Because you're my husband, and I'm married to you, and I want everyone to know." She turned to yell out at the crowd. "Who wants me to throw my bouquet?"

A general yell of encouragement went up from the crowd as it pressed forward, with one shriek of "wait!" and another of "bloody hell" in the middle of it all as Dawn and Giles were trapped, coming back with drinks from the bar. Just as they cleared the mass, Anya threw the bunch of flowers into it. The crowd lunged as one. Then there was a disagreement that developed into a scuffle, until Cousin Carol emerged, hair askew, smiling at Krevlin.

Anya clapped, promising the garter throw later, and, with a kiss for Xander, drifted off towards D'Hoffryn.

"That's the fifth fight already this evening." Giles set the drinks down on the table, then noticed his former slayer. "Oh, hello, Buffy. You look lovely."

"We missed you earlier." Dawn hugged her sister.

"Oh, I'm sure there was enough to do with all the pageantry and stuff."

Xander made sure his new wife was not around. "Well, you missed me encountering my future self, who wasn't really my future self, and getting freaked out, and Faith convincing me that I needed to get back in there and marry the woman I love."

Buffy just stared at him for a moment, then looked around at everyone else. "Um...huh?"

"I know it sort of sounds confusing, but it all turned out alright." The redhead offered her a bright smile.

"And tell Faith thanks again, when you see her."

"What do you mean 'when I see her'? She's not here?" The blonde scanned the crowd, missing her dark counterpart.

Willow joined her eyes. "I haven't seen her yet." Seeing the blonde's dejected look, she hurried on. "I'm sure she's coming, though. Maybe she just had to collect herself after the wedding." She leaned in to whisper. "Don't tell anyone, but I think I saw her crying. It was weird."

"Faith cries at weddings?" Dawn had overheard.

Giles straightened up. "There is absolutely nothing wrong with that."

"Well, I'll make sure to tell her when I find her." And Buffy departed to do just that.

* * *

And succeeded instead in being found by Riley.

"Buffy! You look really wonderful!" He was gushing.

"And you look—" She frowned. "What happened to your tux?"

"There was a height miscalculation."

The blonde couldn't help but snicker. "Oh, well it's really not that...okay, it _is_ really noticeable and ridiculous." Riley deflated a little.

"This young man. This is the son I always wanted." A very drunk Mr. Harris came over and draped an arm around Riley's shoulders. "A big, strapping boy." He looked down at Riley's attire. "Perhaps we'll work a bit on your clothing choices but—" Noticing Buffy for the first time, jerking a thumb in her direction. "Hey, what's this?"

Buffy pasted on a cheerful smile. "Mr. Harris, you must be so happy for Xander on his very special, once-in-a-lifetime day!"

Mr. Harris' eyes were fixed somewhere in the vicinity of her breasts. "Nice chassis. What's under the hood? Rowr!"

Riley looked as though he might punch the man, but didn't want to do so in the middle of a wedding reception. Buffy stepped in smoothly, taking his arm. "You know, I could use a cup of strong coffee. Hey, I know! Let's get you one, too."

"No need. What do you say we slip into the back room instead and I'll show you my—"

She squeezed his elbow, throwing in enough slayer strength to make him wince. "Finish that sentence and you won't have anything to show." Mr. Harris stared at her and then shrugged, walking away. Buffy turned back to Riley, finding him livid.

"He just—" He couldn't even say it.

"I took care of it. He won't try anything."

"But he—"

Buffy sighed, rolling her eyes. "Look, you don't have to be my white knight. I don't need saving, Riley."

"Not even from Faith?"

She leveled him a look. "_Especially_ not from Faith."

He tried to throw it right back at her. "You're the one who told me she was dangerous."

"Maybe...once. But you can't come back here and think everything's the same."

"That much is obvious."

Green eyes flashed at his tone and her fangs extended a little. "What is that supposed to—" She put a hand up. "Wait, I don't want to know. I'm just going to go look for Faith."

"She's not here...how surprising." Riley maintained a dry tone, even though his eyes were locked on the fangs glinting in the blonde's mouth.

Buffy turned to go, muttering "I don't need this."

Riley reached out for her arm, not wanting her to leave, softening his tone. "I just don't want you to get hurt, Buffy." But, try as he might, he couldn't leave it at that. "You've said yourself she isn't stable. And what can she offer you? Nights of beer and pool, stripteases in parking lots, sex in public parks—"

She wrenched her arm away from him, baring those sharp teeth even as her eyes narrowed. "Okay, first of all, fuck you. You come back here all married, wanting me to be jealous. Well, I'm not, I've moved on, so sorry. So why don't you go be with your wife, stop with the moony-eyed hero thing and get the hell out of my business?"

He opened his mouth to protest, but she cut him off.

"I wasn't done. And, second of all, how the hell do you know about the park? What, are you spying on me now?"

He held up his hands, aware he'd lost her, but trying at least to save himself from getting slapped. "Don't look at me, it was Spike." He waved behind her. Buffy turned around to find Spike half-heartedly dancing with a young Goth girl even as he stared back at Buffy.

"Oh my god, _he's_ here?" And with that, she slammed her purse down on the table so she had both hands free and stormed over to him to ask him that very question.

To which he had a ready reply. "Got an invitation." He pulled a creased, folded piece of paper from his jacket pocket. "Real blood on these things, you know. Can't you—"

She snatched it out of his hands. "Get out." She looked over at the girl he was with, eyeing her. "You can stay or whatever." The girl shrugged, not looking particularly attached to Spike, who was now sputtering out a protest.

"But I came to pay my respects!"

"Bullshit. You came to cause problems and why the hell are you stalking me anyway?!"

"If someone comes and shags in your backyard, its not called stalkin'."

"Get out." Buffy's eyes were hard and her finger pointed at the door. "Before I have to stake you."

He growled. "You wouldn't."

She growled right back. "Try me."

"I will, slayer." He slung his arm around his girl only to have her duck out from underneath. His lip curled as she ventured off to the bar. "Well, fine then!" Then back to Buffy. "You'll find me in the end anyway." He drew himself up. "And until then you can just tell Xander and Anya that I'm takin' my fuckin' coffeepot back." With that, he swept out of the room with all the drama he could muster.

* * *

"Buffy! You just missed the garter toss. It was a close one, but I got it!" Willow proudly dangled the lacy, elastic ring as the blonde slayer returned to the table where Willow and Tara were still sitting.

"Glad someone's having a good time."

Tara gave her a smile of commiseration. "I saw you over there with Riley. Was it bad?"

"Let's just say I'm not sure why I chased after him last time. And can you believe Spike was here?"

The redhead's brow furrowed as her eyes scanned the room. Tara answered instead. "I thought I saw Dawn talking to him earlier...."

"He is _so_ not a good influence." Buffy looked over at Willow. "You did manage to get that uninvite back up around the house, right?"

Willow's reply came low and hard. "Oh, he was uninvited." Buffy looked at her for a moment before shrugging it off.

"Well, at least there's that." Buffy's eyes were now the ones absently scanning the room, raking over the dance floor, the bar, not finding what they wanted.

"Still no Faith?"

At Tara's words, Buffy looked back, meeting her eyes, then sliding into the chair next to her friends. "No Faith. Maybe she just doesn't like wedding receptions." She picked at a nail. "And can't say I blame her. Oh, did I tell you guys that someone threw up in my purse? I think it was Xander's dad." She paused, staring off into the crowd. "Yes, all in all, wedding receptions perhaps not so good for Buffy."

"But then we'd miss seeing you in your sexy black dress."

And, hearing the words, Buffy caught the faint smell of smoke and sun and the undercurrent of some spicy perfume, and was off her chair, turning around before she knew it, finding Faith in front of her. Faith in a sleek, tailored black suit. Faith with the emerald silk and plunging neckline of her blouse, the thin straps of her heels revealing red toenails. Faith's flowing dark curls, those dark brown eyes, red lips.

Faith with flowers.

Buffy's hands involuntarily clapped in front of her and she could barely breath the other girl's name.

The dark slayer gently pried those hand apart and placed the clipping of jasmine between them. "I went back to the house to find another bouquet there for you, but then there were these vamps on the way back and one of 'em crushed a couple of the prettiest flowers so I had to stake him and then stake the rest of them. Anyway, long story short, I had to find something else, and this was pretty and smelled good."

Buffy was still stuck back on the basics. "You brought me flowers!" She flung her arms around the other girl's neck, kissing that red mouth. Coming up for air to rest her forehead against Faith's. "I wasn't sure you'd come."

"Wouldn't have missed it."

Buffy leaned in to whisper into the other girl's ear. "Thank you." She could feel Faith's hum at the pleasure of her hands on Buffy's back, the smell of Buffy's perfume. "You look amazingly hot, by the way." Her tongue flicked out to trace the shell of that ear and the brunette groaned.

"Ahem."

The slayers both looked up to see Dawn and Giles staring at them. Willow and Tara were staring at each other and looked as thought they might be in need of a throat-clearing themselves soon enough.

Faith just gave a wry smile to their onlookers. "Fine, fine." She looked back down to those green eyes, taking Buffy by the hand. "Can I have this dance?"

The blonde adopted her most ladylike pose and ducked her head in reply. "But of course." And walking towards the dance floor, she heard the first strains of Ray LaMontagne's "Hold You in My Arms," that voice always so near breaking, as Faith's hands looped low around her waist and her own slipped inside that black jacket to skate along the silk, then slide underneath, needing skin-on-skin as they moved slowly together.

The dance floor populated around them, with Willow and Tara finding their own spot, and Xander and Anya holding each other close. All those lovers, each in their own private universe. Drifting closer together as the night wore on, whatever the music, bodies pressing.

Buffy wasn't even sure when they left. When they stumbled back to the house, down the stairs, into the bed they shared, unraveling what they wore in slow, piecemeal fashion, to appreciate each flattering garment gone, each bit of skin revealed. Until the older slayer had Faith beneath her on the bed, naked, and was gazing down at her, running her fingertips along that taut skin, murmuring "beautiful" over and over again, until Faith was finally forced to believe it, and believe the mouth that was kissing her everywhere, the fingers touching her, moving inside her even as the blonde's teeth broke the skin of her inner thigh.

Faith's hands were tangled in Buffy's hair at the breathtaking rhythm those fingers were making, curling up deep inside her. Faith held herself at bay as she coaxed the blonde up to kiss her mouth, the red lips, to rake fingernails down her torso until they found the sweet spot, and Buffy was crying out into her mouth at the touch, and they were crying out together and then, finally, collapsing together into sleep, the jasmine on the bedside table scenting their dreams.


	41. Chapter 41

A/N: Going a little out of order here, I know. But I hope y'all will forgive me--just works out better this way! Really appreciate any reviews!  


* * *

Slayer stamina being what it was, they did not stay asleep for long.

The early morning stretched out in a tableau of their lovemaking scenes.

Hands everywhere. An embarrassment of riches in that soft skin, the lean muscle beneath it, curves. Hands tangled up in dark waves of hair. Hands with fingers reaching down to touch.

An apology of kisses across the scars inflicted upon them and that they inflicted. That shiny skin, covered over by hands and mouths. To draw from it a sigh of something else: that feeling of being felt, of being known.

Dark over light, light over dark. Hands on hips, looking up at the one above, holding on. Sliding down to bring her mouth between the other girl's thighs, reaching up with her tongue to taste, dipping in as the other one cried out to the ceiling.

The pounding of blood as it rushed to the surface and filled the blood vessels there. Swollen. Flush. Calling out. And because she knew it would be so good, she held back, wanting and wanting. Until she could hold no more and needed and took the wrist that was—finally!—offered, drinking as her eyes rolled back and she came.

* * *

"God, it's like afternoon! Don't you guys do anything other than have sex?" Dawn opened the door a crack, careful to keep the sunlight behind her.

Faith's met her with a husky reply. "Sleeping, actually...." The blonde was nuzzled in the crook of her arm.

"Well, fair warning that Giles is about to come through this door, and he's got a bee in his bonnet about training or something."

Buffy groaned from under the hand thrown across her face. "Hello? Nocturnal now?"

Dawn ignored her sister's sleepy protest. "And you're both naked. Just in case you care or something."

A voice from somewhere behind the younger Summers: "Or harbor any notions of respecting my sensibilities. And good grief, it's not like they haven't been sleeping for nigh on ten hours straight. Not to mention that slayers should...." They couldn't make out the rest of it.

"As if we were sleeping that whole time...." Faith grinned, stretching her arms above her head.

Dawn rolled her eyes and pulled her head back from the doorway. "Okay, I'm officially leaving this conversation now. And don't say I didn't warn you." As she disappeared, there was a more stately knock at the door.

Faith snickered into the blonde's shoulder, leaving a kiss there as she reluctantly sat up. The older slayer's hands reached up clumsily to pull her back down, brushing down her arms, across her stomach.

When that proved ineffective, Buffy yelled up, "I'm getting there, I'm getting there." And getting there involved pushing herself off the bed, snaking around to straddle Faith as she sat on the edge of the bed, capturing the dark slayer's mouth with her own, tugging a little at Faith's lower lip.

Another knock.

"Oh, for crying out loud! Can't I just have one day like this?" Buffy's growl went directly into Faith's mouth. And with one last kiss, she pulled herself away. Faith flopped back onto the bed, touching her hand to her mouth, realizing that the other girl's fangs had drawn a little trickle of blood. When she looked up again, Buffy had thrown on a tank top and some sweat pants and was looking down at her.

Faith met those green eyes. "You have sex hair."

A reflexive hand went up to the blonde hair that was indeed mussed. "Does it look—?" Then she caught the other girl's smirk and threw a t-shirt and shorts at her, crossing her arms over her chest in a mock-huff. "Okay, look you, if you make Giles faint, I'm not picking him up." She watched Faith watch her while sliding on those shorts, dragging them up with her thumbs ever so slowly. Then the shirt over those breasts. Buffy inadvertently bit at her own lip this time, but she had no time to say anything before Giles was coming down the stairs.

"Well, I'm glad to see you both deigned to make yourself decent." He set down a cooler at the foot of the stairs, his eyes taking in the dark hollow under Faith's eyes, the blood on her lip, the twin red holes that stood out against the pale inside of her wrist. "Faith, you're more than welcome to train with us as well. Buffy and I will be trying out a few meditative techniques—"

The blonde stuck out her lower lip. "I thought this was supposed to be training. I don't get to hit anything?"

Giles cleared his throat, looking back at the pouting slayer. "Well, not at the moment anyway. I thought, since we talked earlier about building better self-control, that we would—"

This time he was interrupted by the dark slayer. "Don't you worry, G-man, I'll do my Tai Chi later on and leave you two kiddies to bond while I shower." And with that, she bounded up the stairs past him.

Leaving Giles to watch Buffy, who was watching Faith go with a smile. The blonde slayer was thin and pale, as he imagined she would be for the rest of her life. Or existence.

"You're biting her." It was both a statement and a question.

Green eyes turned to find his, one smile fading to be replaced quickly by another broad one. "Faith and me together and that's all you can say? I would have thought we'd made some progress worth noting, what with the earlier attempts to kill each other and all." She knew she was deflecting.

He knew it, too. "You know that I have no problems per se with your relationship. In fact, I would venture that it's a quite natural fit for both of you, in spite of your past together." A pause. "But you also know my concerns about your timing, given that you are still learning how the slayer controls the vampire within you."

Buffy gestured at the door Faith had just disappeared through. "She offered—"

He leveled a look at her. "Well, that's _clearly_ not a good reason, given Faith's self-destructive tendencies."

"She's not like that anymore!"

"I'll grant you that she's come a long way." It was not a complete concession, but he left it there, turning to her with an honest question. "Are you helping?"

Buffy opened her mouth to say something, then shut it, and then opened it again. "I don't know. I hope so." She was quiet for a moment. "Giles, she's someone who can take it. Who I know could stop me, and won't let me take too much. It helps keep it from all becoming too much—"

"Is that why you bit her _twice_?"

The blonde winced, thankful he hadn't seen the mark on Faith's inner thigh, too. "I'm careful. We're careful. And I wouldn't, not to her." She paused, not quite sure how to go on. "I think I may...the way I feel...." But couldn't quite get it out. "Well, I just wouldn't. But it's...I don't know how to explain it, but it's like it takes something that's all about, you know, horror and killing, and makes it about something else that's sort of wonderful instead."

Giles did not ask her if that was a good thing.

"Well, perhaps these techniques I've picked up from the coven in England will be helpful at controlling some urges, while the cow's blood Tara picked up," Buffy wrinkled her nose in the direction of that animal offering. "will be helpful with others."

"Sure." The slayer stood, ready for her training, leaving the cooler where it sat by the stairs.

* * *

"Dawn, can I borrow—?" Willow stopped halfway into the bathroom, finding the dark slayer instead of the younger Summers. "Oh! Faith!"

"Last time I checked." Faith saw the other girl's eyes flicker over her body, naked except for panties and a bra. "Last time you checked, too, apparently."

At that one, Willow blushed as red as her hair. "No, no, I was just—"

The slayer lifted an eyebrow and shrugged. "Nothin' wrong with lookin'. I would."

The redhead tried to regain her poise, while looking everywhere but at the nearly naked slayer leaning against the countertop in front of her. "You'd look at yourself? You big narcissist."

"Uh-oh...somebody's got a snappy tongue. You musta gotten laid last night, Red. A little hot witch-on-witch action, huh?" She waggled an eyebrow at Willow, gratified at the even brighter shade that the girl turned.

"Okay, Miss I-don't-come-up-for-air-until-afternoon." She put her hands on her hips. "You should be thanking me. I convinced Riley that he didn't want to try for a goodbye scene with Buffy, which I'm sure would have interrupted whatever round you guys were on at that point and amounted to somewhat of a mood dampener, if you know what I mean." She caught her breath. "Last night was pretty amazing, though." She couldn't resist throwing that one in, meeting Faith's sly grin with her own shy smile, even as she rushed on to cover her embarrassment. "But since I have you here, Giles said to mention that you and Buffy might want to look for those three guys from the arcade, since Tara and I found out they've abandoned their other hideaway."

Faith's smile disappeared and her brow furrowed as she dragged a comb through her wet hair. "Not my jurisdiction. You wanna find missing people, put it on a milk carton."

"Faith, they're dangerous. They hurt you." She looked at the slayer's shoulder, but could find little trace of that wound now. "They did stab you, right?"

"Gonna have to tell Tara you're lookin' at me naked again, Red."

"No! I wasn't! And it was just your shoulder anyway, which totally doesn't count!"

Faith gave her a half-smile, pulling a tight tank top over her head. "Just kiddin'."

But Willow was not going to be deterred that easily. "The point is, they are bad people, and we stop bad people. Especially bad people that hold hostages and then stick knives into us. It's like a thing we do here."

"Yeah, and then we end up in mental institutions and aren't any good to anybody."

"Nobody's trying to—"

The slayer whirled on her then. "Well, you don't fuckin' know, now do you? You don't know what was supposed to happen to me in that hospital."

Willow held fast, sticking out her chin. "So you're just going to let them hang around out there?" She looked at Faith, who didn't seem inclined to answer, so she tried another tack. "You're just gonna let them come after Buffy?" The slayer raised her head at that, then looked into the mirror, blowing the air out of her cheeks.

"Okay, fine, what-the-hell-ever. B and I'll look for them." She yanked on a pair of dark jeans. Willow's eyes narrowed a little at the bite mark on the slayer's inner thigh, but Faith didn't catch it. "And while we're at it, we'll look for the elderly, wanna-be wedding crasher demon, too, and actually get to kick its demon ass. Emphasis on the demon."

"Um, sure, you look for it. That's a great idea."

Faith stared at her for a moment. "We ain't gonna find it, are we?"

"Oh, you know, I think it said it would be leaving town."

"You're about the worst fuckin' liar I've ever seen, Red." The redhead deflated a little as Faith went on, explaining. "Your eyes, they do that shifty thing." Then the realization dawned on her. "Wait, jesus, did you...what the hell kinda magic did you work on it!?"

"It was a demon that was trying to ruin Xander's life and it was really, really ugly when it didn't look like an old man!"

"Red."

Willow's shoulder's slumped a little. "I don't know. I teleported it somewhere. I think." She pursed her lips. "Or maybe parts of it."

"You think? You don't _know_!?" She threw up her hands. "See, give me a weapon you can see where it goes any day, not this fuckin' magic shit that never goes the way it's supposed to."

"Well, it sort of happened fast and, trust me, this thing was going to be trouble. He was looking for Anya to take revenge on her for some past thing, probably vengeance-related, so I had to do something fast." She gave a hopeful smile.

"Thought you weren't supposed to be doin' that sort of thing. 'Specially not fast like."

The redhead stood her ground, her smile fading. "I did what I had to do." And folded her arms across her chest, searching for a little moral high ground. "And anyway you promised me you would be able to keep Buffy under control."

The dark slayer turned to face her, confused. "Where the hell did that come—?"

"You think I can't see the bites? It's not like you had an accident with a meat fork."

Faith ran her hand back through her hair, letting out another held breath and feeling her chest tighten somewhere inside. "It's not like that."

"Let's hope not."

* * *

"All I can say is that there better be some demons out here because, after three hours of meditation with Giles, I'm ready to kick some ass." The blonde slayer pushed her hair out of her face as she looked around the graveyard, her knee-length brown coat flowing out behind her as she walked.

"Thought that shit was supposed to be relaxin'."

Buffy looked over at her counterpart with a wry smile. "You try keeping your eyes shut when there's some sexy girl all fresh from the shower doing Tai Chi in the room."

Faith grinned in reply. "Oh, I don't know...next time I see one a those, I'll give it a try." The blonde smacked her on the shoulder, and Faith feigned as if it hurt. "And bet I could do it without the duct tape G-man threatened to use on your eyelids."

And, in a flash, the blonde slayer had Faith pinned against a mausoleum, her small body flush against the other slayer so that Faith could feel the line of the zipper of her jeans pressing in. Buffy leaned in to whisper. "Oh, really? You think you could?"

Faith groaned. This woman she'd held in her arms all night. She felt her own hands, of their own volition, sliding inside the coat, around Buffy's waist, hooking her thumbs in the belt loops of the girl's jeans to pull them even closer. And then she felt that familiar tingle.

Damn.

Faith's voice came husky in the other girl's ear. "Slay now, you later."

"Way ahead of you, F." Buffy winked, leaning in for a quick kiss, then pushing back hard from the stone into a spinning kick that caught the first vampire right across the face.

Faith came out, stake drawn, blocking an awkward swipe at her head, while her other fist went under for the vampire's gut, doubling him over. A kick laid him out, and she pounced on top, ready to plunge the stake into his heart when she saw a blow coming out of the corner of her eye and had just enough time to flinch away so that it hit her shoulder and not her head. She rolled off to the ground with a shout, coming up into a crouch that protected her dislocated joint.

"B! Fuckin' baseball team again."

The blonde looked over from the prey she was stalking, took in the two vampires with bats and let her face revert, baring her teeth. The distraction allowed the vampire in front of her to get in a punch, and she snapped her attention back, growling as she backhanded him over a gravestone. He tumbled, an ungainly flurry of legs and arms.

She spared another look and saw Faith wrench her shoulder back into its socket then leap to one side as a bat-man made a clumsy rush for her. The dark slayer grabbed his weapon on the way past and promptly slammed him in the head with it. He went reeling towards Buffy.

"Sending me your sloppy seconds, huh?" The blonde raised an eyebrow. She reached into her jacket for a stake and stuck it out behind her, catching the one that had been sneaking up there.

"Oh, no. Nothing but the best for you, B." Faith planted a fist in the other bat-boy's face. "But you see what I got to work with here."

The vampire Faith had hit came out of his stun to see Buffy's fanged face in front of him. He shook his head again to make sure he wasn't hallucinating, and gestured back at the brunette. "Sorry, I didn't know she was—"

But he was dust before he got it out. "Mine, you mean?" Buffy talked to the air where he'd been, turning to watch Faith swing at the last vampire. She kept back, but stayed close. He ducked and swung back, forcing the dark slayer to jump over the bat as it sliced through where her knees had been.

"Yours, huh, B?" Faith glanced over at the blonde vampire watching her. She meant to follow her comment up with some snappy reply, but couldn't get it out before the vampire swung at her again. She parried and had the sudden feeling of being in a sword fight, which wasn't going to get her anywhere without a pointed edge. So she banged the handle end of the bat down on a headstone, breaking it off. Now there was a jagged stake she could work with. And with a feint to one side and thrust back to the other, she made it work.

Before the dust settled Buffy was at her side, hands fluttering around Faith's shoulder.

"Is that okay?"

Faith rolled the joint a little, back and forth, reaching inside her jean jacket to feel around. But, as a scream cut through the graveyard's stillness, there was no time.

"Better be."

And with the same glint in both their eyes, they were off in hot pursuit.

* * *

Buffy's vampire-enhanced eyes saw the scene first: a robed demon chasing after a brunette. But then the scene shifted and they were gone, and Faith and Buffy were there, looking at each other.

"Did you just see—?"

A girl crying on the ground. Buffy bent down.

Voices whispering. The world spun. Buffy grabbed her head to stop it, then looked and the girl was gone again. Behind her, the robed demon was holding her around the throat off the ground, squeezing.

She growled around his grip. "You know, as far as killing methods go, choking really isn't going to be—" She whirled and punched.

And was standing over Faith, who was sprawled on the ground with a split lip, looking up with wide eyes.

"What the fuck did you do that for, B?" She touched her lip gingerly, looking up at the blonde standing over her.

"But I didn't...what did I—?" Buffy looked down at her fist, closed and bloody.

More voices. The brunette again, crying as the demon held her fast. Faith sprang up and at them, landing a solid punch into the demon's face, turning for a kick. A kick that ended up striking nothing but air and sent Faith stumbling from loss of balance. Buffy reached out to steady her and both of them fell to their knees with the whispered voices that felt like they were coming from inside their ears.

The blonde shook her head to clear it, reaching over for Faith, only to be thrown back into a tree by the demon's kick.

"Hey, that wasn't—!"

"Stay still, goddammit!" Faith was trying to land a punch, but missed wide and instead caught a kick that sent her crashing down on her bum shoulder, hissing in a breath.

"Faith!"

And then a small knife was slicing along Buffy's cheekbone. She'd just barely seen it in time to flinch away and stumbled, hand to her cheek, looking for something to hit.

Faith had gotten to her feet. "I think he's over—!"

But even as she turned, she saw a figure rushing towards her and instinctively lashed out with a vicious side kick.

It caught the brunette right in the head, sending her tumbling down the embankment.

Faith breathed a "no!" and tore down after her.

The world resolved itself into a quiet graveyard. No demon. No voices.

Buffy rushed down after Faith, slipping and sliding down the hill to the bottom, where Faith knelt next to the still girl.

"What just—?"

"B, she's dead." Faith couldn't look away. "I fuckin' killed her."


	42. Chapter 42

A/N: Again, a little out of order, but I hope you'll find that it works. And perhaps a smidge dark for this time of year, but you know what they say: dark fiction, warm heart. Or something like that.... Love to hear your thoughts!

* * *

"You didn't kill anybody...I was there!" The blonde dropped to her knees to place two fingers on the girl's neck. She found out what she already knew, and stared at the girl for a few moments, trying to place that face, now quiet in death. Giving it up, she closed her eyes and put a hand to her temple and shook her head as if to clear the last few moments from it. There was blood caked on one cheek. "At least I think I was there.... What in the hell just happened anyway? How did she...?"

The dark slayer's eyes were dark and unreadable. "Isn't it obvious?"

Buffy looked up and frowned over at Faith, taking in the dark hair like a curtain around her face. "Um, no...not really. Hence my confusion and my question."

"Well, you already know this fuckin' story: 'Faith lashes out and kills innocent—.'"

"Stop saying that! I don't know what happened, but—"

The dark slayer's lip curled. "Oh yeah, 'cause I kicked her and she fell down this hill, but, you know, she was fine until she had a fuckin' heart attack and died." Faith slammed her fist into the ground and felt the earth compact itself under the onslaught. "Don't be so goddamned naïve, B." The blonde shrunk back a little. Faith brought her fist up, staring at the dirty blood on her knuckles. "Jesus, I can still feel what it felt like when I kicked her...I kicked her like I woulda kicked a demon." She shied away as Buffy reached for her hand and continued to stared down, wide-eyed. "And now she's dead."

Buffy was kneeling, not bothering to smooth back the hair that had fallen forward around her face as she pleaded with her counterpart. "Even if you did kick her, you weren't trying to kick _her_ and you certainly weren't trying to _kill_ her. Faith, I was there...I don't even know how I hit you." There was a tremor in her hand as it reached again towards Faith, towards her split lip. But as soon as she touched it, Faith jerked back. Buffy flinched.

"Not like that matters. Didn't matter to the Deputy Mayor. Dead's dead."

Buffy's response was quick. "We were fighting...it was an accident...just like the Deputy Mayor was an accident—"

"Well then, maybe I oughta just let her know I'm accident-prone." Faith looked down at the still girl before lurching to her feet. "Oh, wait, it's too late for that." She looked like she might throw up. "Shit, I gotta tell somebody. Somebody's gonna want to know." She drew in a ragged breath. "Where's the police station?"

Buffy couldn't stop herself, despite the thunderstorm of Faith's expression. She jumped up and reached out to stop the pacing girl in front of her, wrapping both arms around that body she knew so well. "Faith, no! They'll think you—" Faith shoved her away. A slayer's shove. The older slayer stumbled back into a tree, crying out as she knocked her head against a low-hanging branch. "Faith!"

The last word snapped the brunette's attention back to Buffy. For a moment, Faith's eyes softened at the leaf tangled in the other girl's hair, the glisten in those green eyes, until she forced her own gaze to harden again and looked away across the graveyard.

"So what, B, I only have to go to the police when _you_ want me to? When you think I belong behind bars? When you don't want to deal with me? But, hey, when you _don't_ want me to go, then the police can go fuck themselves and dead people don't matter? What the fuck kinda morality is that?"

"Faith, that's not—"

"Bullshit." Brown eyes held green. "You would go."

And Buffy couldn't say anything to that because she would, because Faith was right.

Faith sniffed, nodding, looking away. "Yeah, I thought so."

Buffy's voice was cracking. "Faith, please...I'm sure there's a warrant, after the escape...they'll lock you up." She moved in again, tentative, behind Faith, who still stayed turned away. She placed a hand on the younger girl's back, in between the shoulder blades, feeling the tension humming there. "Let me go. I'll tell them I hit her. Someone will know then. They'll be able to notify...."

"Can't let you do that, B. And not just 'cause prison doesn't have a whole lotta cells without windows."

The blonde wasn't going to be deterred and hurried on. "Giles then. We'll find him, we'll explain this and make them understand. You don't deserve to be—"

Faith whirled on her then. And, because they were so close, they were even closer when Faith turned. Next to the pale blonde, Faith looked ferociously alive. "I _was_ in prison! I deserved to be in prison, and I would still _be_ there if your ex hadn't sprung me! Everything since then is just a big fuckin' lie."

She said it all in one breath, and then, realizing what she'd said, she winced and turned away.

Buffy's face went blank, then crumpled into hurt. When she spoke, her voice was a hoarse whisper, the words addressed to the dark slayer's back, since that was all she had of her. "Please...don't do this...." She drew in a breath as if she needed it. "Faith...I love you."

Her counterpart stayed still. And if Buffy could have seen her face, she would have seen it go slack for a moment and then tighten with eyes squeezed shut because Faith had never heard those words before. Hardly imagined them, much less coming from the girl she'd spent the better part of a year chasing after and the next two years thinking of. From the girl was sure she'd spend her whole life—however short it was—running after, one way or another.

When Faith spoke, her voice was choked. "Why, B? Why now?"

The blonde just looked at her for a moment, until she forced herself to walk right into that silence and fill it. "Because I have really craptastic timing." That got a glimmer of a smile from Faith. "And because it feels good to be around you, and you make me feel like a person _and_ a slayer, and you're all those things, too, and beautiful and strong and complicated and trying to do the right thing," Faith snorted at that one, but Buffy was adamant. "Trying to do the right thing, which is more than I can say for most people, and it counts more when its hard. And, okay, I don't know how people describe this stuff because why I feel this way isn't a thing you can pin down, except I just know that the thought of you not being here just makes me hurt inside."

The blonde paused, biting her lip at the other girl's continued silence. "So...clearly you're thinking 'man I shouldn't have asked, because, hey, that girl, she _really_ runs on at the mouth.'"

"Fuck!" Faith said it low, to herself, turning to grip the bark of the tree next to her. White knuckles.

Buffy still held on to that breath. "Okay...not really the reaction I was hoping for."

"Fuck, fuck, fuck!" There were tears this time as Faith twisted a fist against that bark, clockwise, drawing blood. And then hit it, again and again and again, until Buffy caught her arm on the backswing, and held it, then held the younger slayer, quivering, against her.

The blonde was quiet, staying as still as she could, her cheek pressed into Faith's back, hearing the girl's heartbeat, fast.

"You know I've still gotta go, B." Faith's voice was loud in her ear. She could hear the breath that had filled Faith's lungs to say it, and the explosion of her saying it.

"I know." There was nothing else to say.

They walked together in silence to the station.

* * *

As far as headquarters of local law enforcement go, the Sunnydale Police Station was a relatively impressive modern affair: the product of a suburban desire for a show of safety and a visible, if impotent, response to the high rate of unexplained deaths.

It loomed in front of them in the dark, brilliantly lit from within. Clean. Efficient.

Faith's fingers clumsily found Buffy's. Buffy looked down at them, intertwined, then back up at Faith, meeting the other girl's eyes, finally, gratefully.

And then they were inside.

Phones were ringing, people were talking in the back, bustling through behind the raised desk. The officer on duty had his head cocked to one side, holding the phone between his ear and his shoulder. He glanced up from what he was writing to take in the two slayers approaching, blonde and brunette, terribly beautiful, their clasped hands, the blonde's bloody cheek. He motioned for them to hold on just a minute because he was sure, whatever this was, it was going to be good.

"Right...right...just layin' there...uh-huh...well, that helps...right, I'll have someone check on it." He clicked off, holding a finger up to Buffy and Faith as he turned to yell behind him towards an officer about to disappear through the door into the back. "Marty?" The man stopped. "Hey, Pete found a body on one a his passes through the cemetery. ID on her says Katrina Robinson. Wants to know if you'll get him an address and—"

"Katrina! That's—oh my god!"

The officer turned to look over at the blonde in the waiting room who was staring, then grabbing the brunette by the arm and dragging her towards the door.

Faith's gaze shifted quickly between the officer and the insistent blonde. "B, wait, what?"

The officer had raised out of his seat. "Can I help—?"

Buffy saw his expression, his hand ready to call for someone, and realized how she must look. So she turned and played the wide-eyed innocent. "Oh, I'm sorry, Mr. Officer, I just...when I heard that name...I went to school with her. It's so awful! I've just got to...I've got to grieve. Please tell Mrs. Robinson I'm so sorry!"

And with that, she dragged Faith out the door before the officer had a chance to say another word.

Faith just stared at her like she had three heads. "What the hell, B? 'I've got to grieve'?"

"I know, not my best spur-of-the-moment acting, but...Katrina!"

"Who?"

"Katrina! That's who the girl was! The girl from the graveyard! I _knew_ I knew her from somewhere!"

Faith was still frowning. "Okay, so now I killed somebody you know. That's great."

"No, Faith...Katrina was Warren's girlfriend."

"Um...Warren?"

Buffy couldn't talk fast enough. "One of the three guys from the arcade. The ones who've been trying to come after us. It's just too much of a coincidence...the weird fight with the, you know, shifty time thing, and then her ending up dead. Faith, somebody's trying to set us up! I don't think she's dead because of anything we did...there's something else going on!"

The dark slayer's mouth was still pressed into a line, eyes still dark and narrow. "I don't know, B...."

But the blonde was way ahead of her, fangs visible now between her parted lips as she looked back in the direction from which they'd come. "Warren did this." She could see again the blood and bandage of Faith's shoulder wound. Willow and Tara held hostage. Her eyes narrowed. "And I'm so going to kill him for it."

All Faith could do was run after her.

* * *

They skirted the police activity, the familiar yellow tape partitioning Katrina's body off from the rest of the dead in the graveyard. Buffy walked carefully around the place where the fight had started, but all that remained was crushed grass and the patterns of their footsteps and kicks. She looked out across the graveyard. Faith kept staring down in the direction of the milling officers, the body.

Then Buffy saw the black van.

Her face reverted completely as she took off in that direction. And, as Faith snapped out of it, and saw the direction Buffy ran in and the black van that was her target, she felt her own fists clench.

The blonde slayer bashed her fist on the van's rear doors. "Warren!"

There was movement within, rustling, the faint sound of someone whining "I thought you said it was going to be her problem now!" That caught the dark slayer's attention. Her jaw clenched.

Buffy stepped back to kick the door in.

Muffled: "Now, you idiot! Call it!" And then a deep, drawn-out bass note vibrating through the van's frame as Buffy held her kick, staring over at Faith with one cocked eyebrow. The dark slayer returned it, then shrugged, reaching past her to grab the handle herself, bracing herself to pull.

And she was swept off her feet by a demon that appeared out of nowhere.

"Where the fuck—?"

It tackled Faith into the dark street, and the breath went out of her, even as the concrete rushed up to meet her. Buffy instantly growled and rushed after, yanking the pale demon off of the other slayer and throwing it into the side of the van. It retaliated with a backhand that caught her across her already bloody cheek. She hissed and her hand went up to feel the wetness running down her face again.

"Hey! That stings!"

Faith blurred past her, slamming the demon back against the metal with a flurry of punches. It roared and parried with the slayer, shoving Faith back into Buffy, who caught her easily around the waist. The demon rushed them both and took a foot in the chin for its trouble, knocking it back into another parked car. Buffy bared her teeth and leapt up on the car and crouched into a sweeping kick that caught the demon in the head again. Faith followed up from behind with another blow that sent the demon crashing into the side of the car.

It snarled and reached up to grab the blonde slayer by the shoulders, pulling her from her perch. She hit the ground rolling and turned back to see Faith punch out and then get kicked in the side of her knee. The dark slayer crumpled with the blow to save the joint. The demon pressed its advantage, catching Faith in the stomach with a kick as a three-inch spike snicked out from the back of its hand. It reared back to strike.

"Faith, watch out!" Buffy rushed in right after her words to place her body in between Faith and the demon.

And then screamed as the spike plunged deep into the side of her arm.

* * *

"No! Please! Stop! I've got to help her!"

The syringe stuck there in her arm for a moment, quivering, before the orderly was able to hold her still enough to depress the plunger. Buffy screamed and writhed in the corner, flailing against the two large men that held her tight by the wrists as the drug seeped in to mix with her blood. Her heart betrayed her and pushed it quickly through her body. Then she could only scream at the sterile walls and the not-listening men, crying out until she felt the drugs begin to do their work and the world of the institution fade away and an empty sleep overtake her as she slumped to the floor.


	43. Chapter 43

A/N: A little shorter than I would have liked, but I figured an update was better than a longer (already so long!) delay. Here's wishing everyone a good year!

* * *

"B!"

Help one, or kill the other, or haul the rest from the van.

Faith had decided before the older slayer even started slumping towards the ground. And the way people fall is always surprising: how they can be standing, fighting, one moment, then collapsing the next, succumbing to the dead weight. Buffy's knees buckled and her eyes rolled back in her head. The demon pulled the spike back under its skin, as if it had never been there to begin with. The older slayer slipped down the side of the car and onto the pavement.

Faith couldn't make it in time to catch her.

But she rushed over as if she could, hurrying to pick Buffy's head off the asphalt and cradle it. Again that quick check for breath and heartbeat. Stupid. She couldn't stop herself. Through the older slayer's eyelids, Faith could see the frantic motion of those irises.

"Fuckin' A, B! Wake up!"

Over her shoulder, the demon took its chance to escape. She had to let it go.

But that didn't mean she had to like it. She punched out at the car, and the fist-sized indentation stared back at her. Her knuckles hurt. Faith looked down and found they were the same ones she had twisted until they bled earlier. Looking back up, she found a young man watching her from the back of the van. His arms were crossed across his chest in a look that was supposed to be nonchalant, but came off as wary. He did a better job of controlling his voice.

"So there's two of you, huh? Two Slayers." He said it as though there were a capital "s" there. And possibly the letter emblazoned on their chests. He sneered a little at Buffy, whose still face was so easy to write off for its youth, beauty. "Too bad for you there's three of us."

In any other time, Faith would have laughed in his face. "Who the—?" It dawned on her. "Warren." A snarl. She was half out of her crouch now. "What the hell did you do to her?"

He went on as if he hadn't heard. "And that's just crazy about Buffy being a vampire. Must be some kinda mindfuck, but, you know, the whole conflicted hero thing...it's big now." He trailed off, waving his hand at her prone form. Faith looked down and realized she hadn't even noticed the blonde slayer's fangs.

"Gonna say this one more time before—"

He paled, but stayed where he was. "Before you kill me?" He gave a smug smile as her jaw clenched. "Oh, right. That's a problem for you."

She lunged, grabbing him by the throat and slamming him up against the cool metal. There was a small shriek from inside the van. "You don't know anything about—"

Warren played at indifference, but couldn't keep the glint out of his eye. "Oh, I know all about you...not too hard when you bear a striking resemblance to the description on a certain outstanding warrant." Faith's look hardened. "Amazing what you can find on the internet, isn't it?" Her hand tightened. "And I know you've got a weakness for her. So you can't kill me because, for all you know, I might know something about the demon that turned her into a shish kebob." He paused. "Well, that, and you probably want to get her in before the sun comes up."

Somewhere along the way, the night had gotten late, or the morning early.

So she had to let him escape, too.

* * *

Faith kicked the door shut, putting the coming dawn behind her. Her sore shoulder ought to be hurting like hell, and it probably would...later.

"Could use a fuckin' hand here!"

"Faith! Dear lord!" From the living room, Giles put down a dusty tome and swooped in to take Buffy from her arms. The blonde stirred almost instantly, murmuring. Confused green eyes blinked up at Giles, then Willow, Tara and Dawn, who quickly crowded around.

"Wha—?"

Giles set her down on her feet and she instinctively stepped back, watching them, eyes wide and wary.

Willow took a step forward. The blonde slayer flinched away, seeing only the hand reaching for her arm. "What happened?"

Faith was the one that answered, standing close behind Buffy. "Demon with tentacle things." Faith made a tentacle-y motion next to her cheeks, and was promptly engulfed in the blonde slayer's hug.

"Oh god, Faith! You're okay!"

"Um yeah?" The dark slayer's brow furrowed as she saw those green eyes running over her, making sure she wasn't hurt. She tried to redirect. "But wasn't me what got skewered."

"Skewered!" Dawn's voice was a little high-pitched for morning comfort, and right in the Englishman's ear.

"Dawn!" Giles winced. "Perhaps we could keep the histrionics within the normal decibel range, especially since Buffy appears to be—"

But Faith was feeding off Dawn's excitement and her own relief. "Yeah, thing's suddenly got this long-ass needle comin' out, and it just jams it—" She stopped as she saw Buffy grow paler and grab at her arm, swaying a little. "B?"

Giles moved behind the blonde to help her slough off her jacket. Tara had already brought the first aid kit from the kitchen and coaxed Buffy to sit down on the couch. The entry wound in her arm was red and angry, just skirting the bone. The blonde slayer stared at it along with everyone else. She could have sworn she saw the syringe there.

One blink and it was gone.

"Is there anything you remember?"

At Giles' question, Buffy's head jerked up, but it was Faith who answered from the arm of the couch, her hip touching Buffy's shoulder.

"Looked like it was wearin' a garbage bag?" There was a line as she struggled to think. "And it had this waxy skin."

"It stuck some sort of spike into Buffy, you said?" Giles was already looking around at his books.

"Yeah. Then she was just out." Faith's eyes darkened as she remembered. She forced an arched brow and a grin as she found those green eyes looking up at her. "You know, B, you coulda made an effort to move or wriggle or something...it's pretty fuckin' hard to tell you're alive."

"That's because I'm—"

"Dead, schmed." Dawn brushed her off, smoothing her sister's hair back out of her face. "Long as you're not a big pile o' dust, you're still our Buffy."

Willow watched her old friend wince as Tara pulled the gauze tight. The blonde witch noticed it too, and cupped the slayer's cheek lightly, easing the pain. Buffy's muscles relaxed, but her eyes still skittered around the room.

"Do you remember anything?" The redhead bit her lip, itching to get inside Buffy's head and see for herself. But with Tara so close, she tried the more mundane route instead. "Anything that might help us find the demon?"

And got a whole lot of nothing for her trouble.

"Other than what Faith said, no." The blonde slayer shared a brief glance with her counterpart, keeping the earlier part of the evening between them, then pasted on a half-smile. "Just a lot of fighting and the needle-thing and then I woke up here, feeling like a bug in a cage, or under a rug, or however that saying goes."

"I hate to mention this, but...the sun." Tara pointed over at the window and the thin sliver of light on the horizon.

Which only left Buffy time to growl out "speaking of cages..." before she trudged off down the basement stairs.

* * *

"So, isn't this supposed to be like your honeymoon or something?"

Xander looked up from his big book of demonology. "Ah, yes, Dawn. This would be the poor man's honeymoon, which looks strikingly similar to his ordinary life." He cast a hopeful look over at his wife. "But, hey, Anya's here, so that's sort of honeymoon-like."

Anya looked over from her own book and propped her foot on his lap for a foot rub. "Except for the us-not-having-sex part."

"But last night...."

"I meant right now."

"Oh. Well, you've got a point there."

"And one for which we are all grateful." Giles kept his eyes on Buffy's kata, watching her fidget through the form. "Buffy, that was an exceptionally sloppy series of blocks. We're going to have to try this again, with a little more focus on your part."

"Okay, so I'm not the karate kid. Big deal." The blonde slayer stopped and threw up her hands, flopping back on her bed for a moment before jumping up again to pace in front of it. Faith looked over from her punching bag, seeing Buffy's glance fall on the manacles hanging from the wall and then turn away to cover the rest of the basement, where the whole gang was spread out, researching, in an attempt to keep her company.

"And he ain't no Mr. Miyagi." Xander couldn't resist.

Giles rewarded him with a look. "Wax off."

The young man's mouth fell open. "Did—did anybody just hear that, because it sure sounded like a—"

The Englishman cleared his throat and returned his attention to his restless charge. "At any rate, if you feel you're not up to your training routine, perhaps we could try meditation instead...."

"I don't want to just sit here in this room all day and be quiet!" Buffy said it just a bit too loud. Willow and Xander both looked up sharply from their books. Faith left her bag and came over.

"Hey G-man, why don't you let us spar? You know, get a little o' that tension out. Because there was that demon, but we didn't get to—"

"Is this it?" Anya proudly displayed a fold-out illustration.

Faith's eyebrow lifted. "That ain't where the spike was comin' from." She turned back to the former watcher. "Anyway, we didn't get to kill it, and we never saw that thing from Xander's wedd—oh shit." She winced as Anya's head shot up.

"What _thing_ from my wedding? There was a thing? A demon?"

"Well, technically there were lots of demons at your wedding."

Anya's eyes narrowed. "You know what I mean, Dawn." And then turned to her husband. "Xander, tell me, was there a thing?"

"Honey, it really wasn't a big deal...." He couldn't very well say it had almost been big enough to make him run. That vision of a future so horrible he committed himself to living only in the present. "Willow took care of it."

"She did?" Now it was Tara's turn to await an explanation from her partner.

The redhead launched in. "I didn't really! Well, sort of...it was there, and it looked like an old man, but wasn't, and I just told it that I was friends with two slayers, who were both going to be at the wedding—well, one at the reception, but we didn't need to tell him that, now did we?—and I guess that must have convinced him because he left."

"He just left?"

Willow stuck her hands on her hips, the picture of competence under fire. "Yep. The threat of two slayers sent him packing."

Only Faith caught the redhead's glance in her direction. She met it and said nothing.

"Well, that was very quick thinking, Willow." Giles smiled over at her. "Though Faith is correct that she and Buffy should attempt to track it down or see that it has left town just in case it presents any sort of danger."

"Nice, Will." Buffy slung an arm around her old friend, grateful that the redhead had helped keep everyone safe while she had been stuck in this room. But she couldn't resist following it up with some gentle ribbing. "I'm gonna have to get you an 'I'm with slayers' shirt and send you out to all the graveyards Faith and I can't make it to."

Xander piped up. "Can I get that in a men's large? Think it might give me some street cred."

Anya reached over to tousle Xander's hair. "What about an 'I'm with an ex-vengeance demon in the married sense' shirt? What sort of 'street cred' would that give you?"

Xander knew which side his bread was buttered on. "Just exactly the sort I'm looking for, sweety."

In looking at the two of them, the room missed Buffy's wince as she closed her eyes.

* * *

And opened them to find herself in a white-tiled hallway. A woman was standing a few feet away, staring at her, holding out a little Dixie cup that rattled with pills. She looked as if she had done this a million times and had heard it all.

"Am I going to have to get security again, or are we going to be able to do this without a fight?"

"What?" The word trembled off her lips as she backed up slowly, hearing the scrape of her slippers across the floor, feeling the bump of the person behind her in line, wearing the same clothes, all of them.

* * *

"What?"

"I said, are we gonna fight or what?"

Buffy blinked and saw Faith standing a few feet away. Those brown eyes were searching hers, and her head was cocked slightly to one side. Willow looked over, too, having noticed that the blonde's arm had gotten heavier on her shoulders.

The vampire shook her head to clear it. "Oh. Um...yeah. I guess I was just daydreaming."

Giles jumped on the concern bandwagon. "Are you sure you're alright, Buffy? Perhaps it's some after-effect of the demon that injured you...." He trailed off as Anya made an excited motion and held out another picture.

Giles squinted at it for a moment.

Dawn helped him out. "Anya, that's a unicorn."

"It has a spike."

"So do my heels, but they didn't attack Buffy."

"Well, I don't see you helping."

"I'm helping by not getting excited about every stupid spike I see...."

Giles decided it was time to cut in. "That's quite enough 'help' from both of you." And turned back to find Faith still staring at Buffy. "And now, ladies, if you're ready...." He handed them both a staff and let them have at it.


	44. Chapter 44

A/N: Another 'cause I'd love to hear what you think!

* * *

"Damn, B!"

The dark slayer reeled back, laughing, from the blow Buffy finally landed soundly on her jaw. Faith hadn't quite gotten her staff up in time to block. She'd gotten sloppy. Not surprising since, for the last hour, Buffy's own feints and parries had been haphazard, easy to defend against.

"I was beginning to think you didn't care." Faith rubbed at her chin, trying at a grin and a wink to pull the other girl off whatever planet she was on.

Well, she succeeded in getting her attention, anyway.

The blonde slayer had taken a step forward, her mouth open, reaching out to touch the blossoming bruise she'd inflicted. But, at Faith's words, her face instantly flushed. "You know I do." Faith almost lost the murmur of it as Buffy turned away, fiddling with one end of the bandage on her shoulder that had popped up, no longer sticky.

Neither of them had forgotten what Buffy had put out there earlier in the night. The blonde tossed her staff at Dawn so that she didn't have to face another awkward silence.

Her sister caught it just before it clattered to the floor, already half-out of her seat at the chance to physically abandon the book she'd already stopped looking at a while back.

"Oh! I get to try?"

Giles looked as though he might say no for a moment, then, shrugged, deciding that it couldn't hurt for Dawn to know how to protect herself, given that she lived in Sunnydale and her sister was the slayer. The opportunities for encountering danger were legion.

Faith stood behind them for a moment, silently cursing the mouth that ran ahead of her brain, knowing she should do or say something. God knows what. Which was precisely why she didn't do this sort of thing.

But that didn't change the blonde standing in front of her, the blonde who was keeping her eyes carefully on Dawn.

So Faith came up behind Buffy, feeling the familiar tingle of her proximity. She reached around, placing her staff in the smaller girl's hand. The small apology of a finger brushing against another finger in the exchange.

"You'll be needing this."

Buffy nodded in reply, closing her eyes for a moment before opening them again to find her sister standing at the ready, and Faith already back with her punching bag and her thoughts. The rest of the room was trying to pretend it was very interested in its research.

"Alright, Dawn, show me what you've got."

And for a while, there was only the clack of their weapons against each other, the huff of the younger Summers' breath, the footwork of Buffy's defensive dance. Stealing glances at them, their audience was thinking of the fact Dawn had been made from Buffy or that Spike had been teaching Dawn or some other fact that led them think that it was more of a fight than they had expected. Not the sparks of a slayer-on-slayer pairing, but enough to leave Buffy gritting her teeth to stay focused.

From the sidelines Giles coached Dawn. "Watch for the opening she's left you." and fighting and "There, one shot to the temple." and fighting and "More to the center. No, if you want to kill her, you're too far left." The last bit of advice a reminder that the heart isn't where most people think it is.

Buffy felt herself falling into the rhythm of the fight, these motions so familiar to the slayer and the vampire inside her that they itched for the freedom to carry them out. From behind her, the grim thwack of Faith's punches was the backdrop of a battle going on.

She started to throw up a block.

* * *

Her hand didn't move. It was bound to a bed.

"What the—!?!" Buffy thrashed against those leather straps and felt the soreness in her wrists that told her she'd been doing so for a while. She looked down at them as if they would tell her why and how.

"You don't have to fight here."

The voice startled her, then she turned to find it. A man in a doctor's coat looked over at her, waiting patiently for her eyes to find his before he began again.

"Buffy, can you hear me? Do you know where you are?"

Shouldn't this be the gimme question? "Sunnydale?"

His frown matched her own. "No, none of that's real. None of it." He saw her shake her head, and rushed on. "You're in a mental institution, Buffy. You've been with us for six years now."

She didn't even know how to fight against that and so stared at him instead, mouth falling open. There was a scream building inside her. If she screamed loud enough, would Faith, Dawn, someone hear?

* * *

Her block was holding, though Dawn tried her best, leaning close to throw her weight behind it. Buffy blinked at her sister's face so close to her own. She had a sense that her mouth was open and snapped it shut.

* * *

Then it was the doctor's instrument, then face, so close to hers. She was in the corner now. The bed and its restraints above her.

"Dawn?" Hoping.

He shook his head. She banged her own against the wall at her side. And again.

The doctor slipped a hand between her and the wall, turning to look behind him, then back to Buffy, smiling as if he had something for her.

"But I have some people here that I think you'd like to see."

Buffy dragged her eyes from him, squinted to focus, and then opened her eyes wide. Mom. Dad.

"We're here, honey. Everything's going to be okay."

* * *

One moment, Faith's hands were holding on to the punching bag, stopping it from the swing her blows had sent it on. She wanted at once to keep hitting it and to stop hitting. Not knowing which to do, she was holding on to the bag, resting her bruised jaw against its cool leather, her breath coming heavy in little blooms of humidity.

And the next moment she was looking down at a girl on the ground with a bruise on her face.

Her world started to crumble, and she sank to her knees, mouthing the words "no, no, no."

But this time, those dead eyes fluttered open to meet her own frantic ones. Sound, returning, came in a rush of Buffy's name and Dawn's shriek and shouts of "what happened?" Buffy's eyes unclouded and, for a split second, her face fell at the faces that were not there.

Then, seeing Faith's lips still mouthing their rejection of the situation, Buffy forced herself to blink quickly into focus. Amidst the uproar, she stayed fixated on Faith, holding that brown gaze even though it wanted to shy away or hide behind the darkness of eyelids.

"I'm okay, Faith. It'll be okay." The older slayer reached out to her lover and covered white knuckles with her hand.

But they couldn't ignore the rest for long.

"Buffy, are you alright?" Giles was pulling her away, helping her to her feet. Dawn had her other hand. Buffy looked down her sister's hand on hers.

"I didn't mean to...we were just...you were supposed to block!" Her sister had thrown down her staff. Tara wrapped an arm around her, trying to calm her down.

"I'm sorry, I must have been thinking about something else...let my mind slip. It's okay. You did what you were supposed to do, Dawn."

"But what if I'd—"

Everyone was crowding around, closing in. Buffy couldn't stop herself from flinching back. Xander tried to make space for her. Willow's worried gaze flickered from Buffy to Tara and back again. Giles stared at his charge for a moment, then down at Faith, still kneeling on the ground, now with her head in her hands.

"Buffy—" He started, then stopped and started again. "Faith, is there something you haven't told us about last night?"

And so they spent the next hour talking about that.

* * *

By the end of it, Faith was down to monosyllables. Buffy filled in most everything else: the fight, the shifting time, the dead girl, the police, Katrina. She hunched over, rubbing the tense muscles in her shoulders with her own hands. How long had it been since she'd slept? Giles noticed and stood up to clear the room for them.

"Well, it's clearly been a long night...and day for everyone. I suspect rest is what's needed now, for both of you."

Both slayers nodded wearily.

Looking at Faith, her hair a curtain over her face, he felt as though he ought to say more. "Thank you for sharing that with us, Faith. I can assure you, we will be expanding our research efforts to attempt to locate Warren and his compatriots as well." Then turning finally to Buffy. "And we'll still keep looking, of course, for the demon that wounded you. Do let me know if the shoulder gets worse."

Willow stayed behind to re-bandage Buffy's wound. The old one was now peeling off in all directions. The point of entry itself was angry. The blonde rubbed her hands over her eyes as the redhead worked, trying to smear away the blur in her vision.

"Don't even fuckin' think about it, Red."

At the dark slayer's words, Buffy raised her head in confusion. She was on a bed, but it wasn't the hospital. Faith and Willow were glaring at each other.

"I wasn't doing anything!"

"You had that look."

"What look? I didn't have a look...there was no look here."

"That look like you're about to damn near crawl right inside B's head."

"I _did not_ have that look!"

"Callin' 'em like I see 'em." A pause to look square in the witch's eye. "And if you even fuckin' try it, I will smack you down."

"Oh, like you did to Katrina?"

The blonde's voice broke in sharply. "That's enough, Will. We've been through this. Faith didn't _do _anything."

The redhead kept her arms crossed across her chest and didn't take her eyes off of Faith. "Fine. Tried to, then. And I'd just like to see you try."

"Will...." Buffy's hoarse voice was a warning. But nobody was paying any attention.

* * *

"There's no Willow here, Buffy."

The blonde's eyes went wide at her mom's voice. "Mom?" She could hardly get the word out. "How are—? How can you—?" There were just too many questions to ask.

"Your dad and I have been right here by your side, and, honey, the doctor thinks you might finally be strong enough to pull out of this." With an eloquent gesture, the wave of her hand took in the room, the doctor, the restraints. "You've just got to stay here with us."

* * *

Back in the basement, Willow and Faith were still exchanging barbs.

"Red, you've fucked up just about everything you've tried to do with magic. You hurt people. You hurt Buffy."

Incredulous. "Like you don't?" Those hands were on her hips now. "At least I'm always _trying _to do the right thing."

"Will...Faith...." Buffy placed a hand against her forehead to keep it from spinning.

The dark slayer plowed forward, sneering. "Yeah, well there ain't a prize for tryin' and you make out like judge, jury, and executioner—"

"Which is the exactly what you and Buffy do every time you go out to slay!"

"There's a fuckin' line, Red. And it's right or wrong—" Faith wanted so badly to believe it.

"Please...help...." Buffy wasn't sure who she was talking to anymore.

* * *

"I know, baby. It's okay. We're here to help. The doctor says we can all work on this together." Joyce smoothed the hair back from Buffy's face, wiped away the blonde's tears with her thumb.

"Faith?" A pause. "Will?"

"No, Buffy, they're not here. They're not real."

From behind her mom, Buffy saw her dad leaning in. Her dad, with his hand on her mom's shoulder. "Honey, you know this. I know they used to be a comfort for you, but they aren't now, are they? Are these really your friends?"

"But Faith...."

"You've said it yourself that she's a killer."

The tears had never stopped. "No, that's not—she's not—!"

* * *

Willow was still talking. "Oh, so you're saying it was wrong for me to take care of that demon at Xander's wedding? The demon that wanted to ruin everything _and_ then go and attack Anya because of some stupid grudge he was holding? So that was wrong?"

"Hell yeah! It's wrong when—"

Willow was too quick for her. "When it's not you or Buffy doing it?"

"Please!" It was almost a hoarse scream now. And both Faith and Willow were instantly at the blonde's side. Buffy kept her eyes squeezed shut, not sure who she would see, or who she should want to see when she opened them. "Please." A little softer now. "Can we just...not now?"

Faith glared over at Willow as if to say "you heard her." It was plain the dark slayer wasn't leaving. The redhead waited for some signal from her old friend, but Buffy said nothing, so she picked up the extra bandages.

With a last hand on Buffy's shoulder, a squeeze, she turned back towards the stairs. "Promise you'll let me know if you need anything?" Buffy nodded so, with one last glance at Faith, Willow left.

In the silence, Buffy felt hands easing her back onto the bed, unlacing her tennis shoes. The gentle pressure of Faith settling next to her. She dared to open her eyes and found the dark slayer's brown ones looking right back at her, the concern in them easy to read.

"Sorry, B. Red just—" She could feel the outrage creeping back into her voice and stopped to start again. "We got carried away." Faith took in Buffy's red-rimmed eyes, darting from Faith's face, to the bed, around the basement. "Are you okay, B? You seem a little...I dunno, spacey or somethin'." She brushed a fingertip across the bruise Dawn's blow had left on Buffy's temple. She wondered if she should say something about earlier. About what Buffy had told her. Maybe Buffy was feeling weird about it. Maybe she wanted to take it back.

"Faith, I just...." The blonde's voice snapped Faith out of her spiraling thoughts. "I just need you. Please don't leave me."

The brunette's brows knit at that. "Um, sure, B. Wasn't plannin' on it. But yeah okay, you just tell me—"

And her words were cut off by the blonde's insistent mouth, her desperate kiss that pulled Faith on top of her. That sweet, real weight that kept Buffy pinned to the bed, underneath. Buffy's own hands fumbled and grasped at to keep her there. And the energies that both slayers had held, pent up since the fight the night before, through the unsatisfying training and arguments and drama since then...they let them loose to come together. Faith's mouth could not drink in enough of Buffy, could not kiss enough. She could not smell enough of that skin, that smooth, cool skin that she knew like her own. Bruised and injured now. She was tender with those spots.

Buffy's own skin ached with her need for Faith, to touch more of her. Her hands were everywhere. Those beautiful breasts, hanging, pendulous, above her. She brought her mouth to the nipple of one and pulled on it, rolling it around on her tongue. Her groan hummed against Faith's skin, and Faith's own match it until both slayer's were fairly vibrating with their need for each other.

Faith pushed up Buffy's tank top, finding the breasts underneath and taking them into her own mouth, then ripping off the top altogether to see all of her. Buffy arched up into that gaze, whimpering at the hands pushing down her sweats, reaching in. She felt her being narrow down to that touch, to the finger on her clit, the fingers working their way inside her. Her awareness of everything else fading.

* * *

"Stay with us, honey. We're here for you."

Buffy opened her eyes to find her mom next to her, holding her close. The mother she thought she'd lost.

Pleading. "But Faith...."

"Buffy, from what you've told us, it just doesn't make any sense. Think about it. Why would you and Faith be together...after all the past you say you have, after you say that she hurt you so much before, hurt me.... Just think about it, honey. This, here, makes more sense. There's no hurt here. We love you, honey, we love you so much!"

* * *

Faith was focused on the touch of Buffy's fingers on her body, finding the spots that would make her cry out. Focused on the feeling of Buffy around her fingers, that quivering clench that held on, spasming as it reached for its release.

And then the words that finally drifted into Faith's consciousness, stopping her hands dead where they were as the blonde's head shook back and forth, her eyes squeezed shut.

"No, no, no, no...."


	45. Chapter 45

A/N: My thanks as always for your thoughts! An additional note to give credit where due, the "somebody" Faith refers to at one point in this chapter is Jeff Buckley (from the song "Lover, You Should Have Come Over").

* * *

Faith didn't move, her hands frozen in their compromising position, uncertain of themselves. She hazarded a glance up at Buffy's face. The blonde's eyes were still screwed shut from the climax she'd been on her way to, but red-rimmed now and wet with tears. Her mouth was still making that persistent rejection of "no, no, no." It took a moment before Faith could talk through her own cotton mouth.

"Alright, so I'm pretty sure I'm not doin' this wrong, and I sorta pride myself on my skills, or at least I ain't heard any complaints and, anyway...." Her rambling trailed off as those green eyes flickered open underneath her, their pupils dilated. Faith let out a breath, moving her hands up to flutter uselessly before she clamped them to her side where they wouldn't look so out of their element. "B? You okay?"

"Faith?" The dark slayer watched as Buffy struggled to focus. "Faith, is that—?"

"Yeah, in the naked flesh, last time I checked."

The older slayer stared down as if she needed to check, too, nonetheless. She found the other girl's hip bone and held on to it. Her eyes were still wide and dark. "They told me...they told me you weren't real."

"Wait...time-out. Who said what now?"

"The doctor. Mom."

A pause. "Okaaay, now I'm sure I'm missing somethin' because it just sounded like you said your mom and she's...well, she was a great lady and all but she's, um, you know, dead, so I'm thinkin' you must mean—"

Buffy cut her off, insistent. "No! It was her. She was there! I was just—" She stopped abruptly, her eyes looking wherever that there was.

The younger slayer wasn't sure what to say to that. She knew Buffy didn't want her to point out the obvious reason why her mom couldn't have been there again. And the thousand-yard stare was kind of freaking her out. Faith sat up on the bed, folding her legs Indian-style, the cap of each knee touching Buffy's side. "S'okay, B." She smoothed those wild blonde locks out of her face. "Maybe you should back up or somethin'."

Buffy just blurted it out. "I'm in an institution. A mental hospital." She ran a hand across her eyes, pinching the bridge of her nose. "I mean I was. Or anyway I keep finding myself there."

A laugh caught in Faith's throat until she realized the other girl was serious. She swallowed it back down, choking on it "You're not— Fuck...I mean, that's not—" Every time she started, she didn't know how to end it. So instead she reached over to yank her t-shirt back over her head, slip on some boxers. Getting dressed. That she could do. "Alright, hold that thought...we gotta get G-man and all them for this." Her brain was running miles ahead of her, so she didn't see the other girl's panicked look when she moved, didn't see her putting on her own clothes, tank top inside-out. Didn't notice until she flung the door open at the top of the stairs and saw Buffy flatten herself quickly against the wall a few steps below Faith, out of the slant of afternoon sun coming in. "Oh, shit! Shit! B, I didn't mean.... You can't go out there! You know that!"

There was no comprehension for a moment in Buffy's eyes. Then: "Oh. Right." Her vampire knew it, even if she'd forgotten. One of her fangs pricked the inside of her lip. She was horrified to taste the blood. She looked up at Faith from the shadows. "Hurry."

* * *

"Is this something to do with that pointy demon guy? 'Cause I _knew_ he was gonna be trouble."

They all stomped down the stairs to arrange themselves in a tight semi-circle, a small-looking Buffy in the middle, sitting on the edge of her bed. Dawn reached over to tuck in the tag sticking out of the back of her sister's tank top, only to realize the whole shirt was inside-out. She debated mentioning it, then left it alone, taking Buffy's hand in her hand instead.

Faith sat on the blonde's other side, drawing in deeply on a cigarette. She wasn't going to go outside and miss this, so they would just have to deal. Buffy had the advantage of not breathing.

The blonde thought she could hear the doctor's voice in the background: "Possibilities for a full recovery, but we have to proceed cautiously...."

"Well, Xander, perhaps we can just take this one step at a time. Buffy, Faith said there was some reason for concern?"

The blonde slayer's head jerked up at his question. Faith silently thanked the older man for not revealing that she had sounded a little more frantic than "some reason for concern" would suggest. Hand it to the Brits.

"I was like— No, it wasn't _like_. I _was_ in an institution. There were doctors and nurses and other patients and...." She trailed off, glancing over at Dawn. "Anyway, they told me I was sick. Crazy. That all this—Sunnydale, I mean, this—none of it was real."

Xander scoffed. "Oh come on! That's ridiculous! What, do you think this isn't real because of the vampires and the ex-vengeance demons and the sister that used to be a big ball of universe-destroying energy?" He paused, frowning at himself.

"I know. But that's what they said. And it was so real...."

"Hey, it's like the madwoman in the attic. Except she's in the basement." Everyone stared at Anya. "I've been reading _Jane Eyre_." Everyone still stared. "It was just a comment."

Giles cleared his throat. "Yes, well, kindly keep it to yourself next time." He readjusted his glasses. "Now, Buffy, you say it was a mental institution you were in?"

The blonde slayer nodded, the long waves of blonde falling around her face.

He nodded, thoughtfully. "Well, the timing does seem to suggest some connection with the demon. A poison, perhaps?"

"So this thing pokes her with its poison and, instead of being really, like, crazymaking, it actually makes you think you're a crazy person?" Dawn looked around. "Did that make sense?" Giles nodded, Willow gave her a so-so sign. "What is this, like, the world's more specific demony poison or something? Wouldn't it be easier to just make her go nuts? Why go through all the trouble of making her feel like she's all one-flew-over-the-cuckoo's-nest?"

Giles took the time to clean his glasses. "I'm not certain, Dawn. We'll have to start by looking up demons whose poisons are known to have hallucinogenic properties. It's quite possible that the poison merely picks up on internal instabilities."

Faith snorted. "Boy, did they get the wrong slayer."

Buffy turned to face her, frowning. "It's not so far-fetched, you know."

From the other side, Willow reached over to take Buffy's hand, realizing that no one had really said it yet. "You're not in an institution. You've never been in an institution."

Buffy looked down at her hands. "Yes, I have."

Dawn and Faith almost came off the bed, talking simultaneously. "What the fuck?" and "When?" Giles just looked at her sadly: "Oh, Buffy."

The blonde plowed on. "They took me to one once, when I was talking about vampires and stuff, right at the first."

"No way! Ow—shit!" The cigarette fell out from between Faith's lips and, toppling down, burned her inner thigh. She pinched the skin hard between her fingers so she couldn't feel the burn. "Did anybody know about this?" She scanned the room, but saw only shocked faces.

Dawn's face most of all. "You never said anything." It was barely a whisper. "You said 'they.' Mom and Dad? They did that?"

"They weren't trying to— They were just worried something was wrong."

Dawn stared at her for a moment. "They're there, aren't they?"

"Where?" Xander didn't quite get it.

But Buffy did. She nodded. "Both of them. Together."

"Shit." Faith let out a low whistle. Dawn couldn't say anything.

* * *

"...an intricate latticework to support her primary delusion...."

The doctor was talking. The faces of her mother and father swam on either side of her. Buffy blinked, frowning.

"That's not— How could I make this up?" She shook her head furiously. "I mean, that. How could I make that up?"

Her mom wrapped an arm around her shoulders. "We know you didn't mean to, honey. It's not your fault."

The doctor steepled his fingers on the desk in front of him. "It's a simple matter of creating one thing, and then another follows from that, to provide context and soon you have an entire world that needs ever more fanciful enemies."

Buffy had tears in her eyes. "But...why would I make it like that? Why would I make myself a vampire?" Holding on to her mother. "Why would I have you die?"

"All of it...it's not as comforting as it used to be, is it, Buffy?"

"But it's not all— Dawn...you'd be so proud of her, Mom! She misses you! And Faith! I love her and it's so good to finally have—"

"Someone who can be like a family? Sweety, you have a family here. We love you no matter what."

* * *

"B!" Faith squeezed Buffy's hand, and the basement came back into focus.

Dawn was still staring at her sister. "I wasn't there, was I?"

Her sister looked over at her, eyes brimming, shaking her head as she cupped the girl's cheek. "They said—"

"Wait...none of us are real...there, I mean?" Xander reached out and took Anya's hand in his. Xander, Willow, and Giles glanced over at Faith.

The dark slayer shrugged. "Don't look at me. I knew I wasn't gonna be there."

Buffy frowned over at her again. "That doesn't mean—"

Willow broke in, clapping her hands. "Okay! All in favor of research. Right, motion carried. Faith and Xander, why don't you hit the demon bars...Dawn, you and Tara and I can hop on-line. Giles and Anya, you guys can take the old fashioned route."

* * *

Faith lit up another cigarette as they walked, busying herself with the lighter.

"That's just crazy— I mean...well, you know what I mean. About Buff." Xander walked beside the silent slayer, giving her a sideways look to see how she was taking it.

She took it by not saying anything, just inhaling and exhaling.

So Xander was the poster boy for persistence. "And who would have thought her parents tried to put her away?"

"I should be there."

"Well, I don't think her parents knew—"

She leveled a look at him.

"Oh, right." He glanced over. She was looking straight ahead then, dark and remote. "You want to be in an institution?"

Another look. "No, dumbass. I'm just sayin' it shoulda been me." A pause. "Not her."

He thought he knew the answer but thought he ought to ask anyway. To be polite. "Okay, I'll bite. Why?"

This time she didn't even bother with the look. As if it was so obvious, it was only worth an eye roll. "In case you missed the memo, I'm the psychotic one."

"Yeah." He rolled his eyes in turn. Two people could play at that one. "Hello. It's three years ago. They want their drama back."

She glanced over sharply at that.

He went on, sighing, wishing he had his own cigarette. And that he smoked. And that he could look as sexy as she did doing it. "Faith, you don't have to be the bad one, and you don't have invest everything in making her the good one." He made sure she was looking at him. "That's bound to disappoint everybody."

Faith just sniffed. "That's just the way it is, Xan-man."

"No, it's not. But you're upset because Buffy being crazy doesn't fit into the little box you're trying to put her in, and you're afraid that might mean you've got to be the good one, and you think you don't know how to do that." He had to take a breath after that one, and mentally scored himself one point.

Faith just stared and him and went back to her cigarette.

"You know, the slayer before you, Kendra—"

"Yeah, thanks for reminding me of my mortality."

Xander frowned. "Don't give me that. You get off on your mortality because you think it frees you to do what you want." She frowned in turn into the smoke. He went on. "So, anyway, Kendra, she shows up and she's pretty much Ms. Rule Follower. Like a little Giles. Seriously. And next to her Buffy looks like a big slacker." Faith looked incredulous. "Anyway, where it got her in the end was that she had to kill Angel, her mom kicked her out of the house, and, when Buffy didn't get there in time, Kendra ended up dead."

Faith just stared a him.

"So then you come and you're all naked-alligator-wrestling stories—which by the way were great—and 'hungry and horny' and put Buffy up on a pedestal. And where does that leave her? You two try to kill each other, and Angel nearly dies—this is a theme with him—and that whole thing pretty much sucked, too."

"Did you have a point?"

"Maybe. But I've forgotten it." He kicked a rock in the street. "Anyway, what I don't get about you slayers is why, when there's two of you, you always end up trying to be those ends of the magnet that don't go together." The rock clattered off down into a sewer. He wondered if there were any vampires in it. And then thought that he'd been living in Sunnydale too long. "From what I've seen, being a slayer is good, and bad, and complicated. Maybe it's okay to be all of that."

Faith's head was filled with the image of Buffy's wide, wild eyes. "Maybe we all just end up crazy."

"Maybe you could make it easier for each other." He didn't know how to tiptoe around it. "I think you make Buffy happy."

Faith took another drag and didn't say anything.

Xander stared for a moment, watching the tremor in the girl's fingers, then decided to chance it. "Do you love her?"

She was silent for so long that he thought she hadn't heard him, or wasn't going to answer. Then she did. "Too young to keep good love from goin' wrong." A pause as she looked out into the night. "Somebody said that."

Xander stared at her for a moment, then sighed. He should have known she wouldn't tell him the truth. "You're a lot of things, Faith, but too young isn't one of them." He paused. "And, what I said earlier...I think you know exactly what to do."

And then they were at Jimmy's. "Maybe you're right about some things." With a glint in her eye, Faith kicked the door in.

* * *

"Buffy! Look!"

The blonde turned away from her punching bag as the redhead bounded down the stairs.

"Will?" Yes, it was her old friend.

"I think I found your demon." She pulled a book from under her arm and opened it to a marked page. "It matches your description, with the same symptoms and everything."

The blonde slayer looked down at it and nodded.

"See, it's gonna be okay. Willow to the rescue. Its pokey stinger thing carries the antidote to its poison." There was a big smile plastered across her face as Buffy looked back down at the photo again.

* * *

Buffy's mother turned the picture over for her. "Summer 1993" was written in a looping hand on the back. On the front, Buffy smiling on the beach with her mom. She could see her dad's shadow across the sand from where he was taking the picture.

They were outside, on the grounds, she supposed. Where they let patients go when their families came. The sun was warm through the thin cotton of her shirt. She looked up at it.

"I never thought I'd see it again." Joyce looked blank for a moment. "The sun."

"Oh, right, honey. You made yourself a vampire, I remember now."

"Well, technically, _I_ didn't— Or maybe I did." She shut her eyes and saw spots in her eyes from the bright light she wasn't used to.

Buffy's mom was nodding a little, taking out the sandwiches. "Now why on earth...well, your dad and I are trying to understand. We can't figure out if maybe you saw some horror movie somewhere...." She sighed, putting her hands on her knees, finding the picnic all laid out. "But I guess that doesn't really matter. What's important is that you're coming back to us."

* * *

"What if I'm still there?"

"Buffy...Buffy, you're not."

The blonde looked over at the redhead's voice, her eyes red-rimmed from crying.

"I'm sorry you had to go through that, but it's over now. I just sent out Giles and Anya to go tell Xander and Faith. They ought to be hunting the demon right now. They'll bring the antidote back and everything will be okay."

All Buffy could do was nod.

* * *

"I made you some tea."

Dawn came down the stairs, walking carefully with the hot mug.

"I should be taller than you."

Dawn stopped a few feet away, watching her sister stare at her. Then she started again, handing over the cup, trying out a grin. "Maybe you're not done growing."

But Buffy was shaking her head. "That doesn't make any sense, Dawn. I'm older so I should be—"

* * *

"You don't have a sister, Buffy."

The blonde blinked in the sun. "Dawn?"

"No, honey."

Buffy's face started to crumble. She fought to keep it under control.

Her dad leaned over to put a hand on her shoulder. "Say it, honey. It'll help you believe it."

"I...don't have a sister."

"That's right, sweety...."

Buffy leaned into the hand her mom placed on her cheek, reaching up to touch that hand.

* * *

Her hand brushed against Dawn's cheek and both girls startled back.

"It's your ideal world, and I'm not even a part of it."

"That's not true." But Dawn had already dashed back up the stairs. Somewhere above her in the house, Buffy could hear a door slamming.

* * *

Faith let out a whoop and they were off. Anya had spotted the demon first, just as it had spotted them. It took off running and now all of them were in hot pursuit. Faith in the lead. They ended up in a little cleared area outside a mausoleum. All of them bunched up at the entrance.

Giles gathered his breath. "Faith, laying a trap for it outside, since it will have to come—"

The demon roared from behind them.

Faith sprang out in between the demon and the rest of them. "New plan. We fight it out here."

"Quite right, that does seem best." He raised his crossbow from under his jacket.

"Xander, Anya. Flank left and right. Ropes ready. G-man and I take the front."

The Englishman looked at her for a moment. She hardly looked winded and he felt as though he might fall over any moment. "We will? Perhaps that's not...."

The demon made up his mind for him when it came straight at him. "Oh!" His hands remembered to get the crossbow up in front of him and fire.

He grazed its shoulder and it roared even louder.

"Dang it! Missed the bloody thing!"

"Counted on it." Faith jumped in behind it, wrapping an arm around its neck while it was distracted and slamming it down to the ground next to her. "Watch out for the spike thing!" It slashed out at Anya as she approached.

The blonde resorted to using her rope like a sort of whip. "Oh no you don't! You won't send me to the funny farm!"

Faith dived over and pinned the arm to the ground. It's other arm came up behind her and started to claw at her back until Xander grappled it down to the ground, too, with a little assistance from Faith's knee that she had brought up in order to throw her whole body across the demon's middle.

"Giles! Tranquilizer!"

The watcher threw down his crossbow, pulled the needle out from his jacket pocket and took the cap off with his teeth. He jabbed it down into the demon's shoulder. As it stilled underneath Faith, the dark slayer rolled off, laughing, taking the rope Anya handed her and winding it around the demon's arms and chest.

"Alright, motherfucker. Got a blonde wants to meet you."


	46. Chapter 46

A/N: Another for you! Just for you!

* * *

Buffy watched them pile through the front door together, laughing in their triumph.

"And did you see his look when Faith said he would take the front with her?" Xander made a face somewhere between guppy fish and constipation.

"I looked in no such way, Xander! And wasn't I able to get a shot off with my crossbow first? I should think that takes a certain amount of poise."

Anya twirled the end of her rope like Wonder Woman with her lasso.

Grinning in the middle of it was Faith. Dark eyes flashing in the living room lamplight.

"I dunno, G-man. If you're gonna be bringin' up that shot, you might wanna explain the girly aim." Faith carried the torso of the demon as if it weighed nothing at all. Giles and Xander struggled with a leg each.

Buffy's eyes ran over the other slayer's figure, checking the tight jeans, the revealing tank top for the stain of blood. Checking the exposed skin for any new cuts or bruises. She found none, the dark slayer instead being the epitome of life and energy.

Relieved, she let her eyes travel, trying to get back somewhere familiar, indulging in the red of curving lips, the promising valley between breasts that swelled with each still-excited breath, the pulse in her neck.

* * *

"I know it's going to hurt…."

"Wha—?" Buffy's head whipped around to find her mom at her elbow. The blonde's face instantly went red, and she clapped a hand over her mouth. "Oh my god, did I say just something out loud?" Her mind ran through all she had been thinking and thought that none of it was the sort of thing one wanted one's mother to know.

"Your dad and I have accepted that you're sexually active in this world you've created." Joyce took a breath and tried to ignore her daughter's flush. She plowed on. "But even if you are gay, and even if this Faith person seems like a good idea—"

Buffy's dad snorted a little at that. Joyce frowned at him before looking back at Buffy. "The doctor says you need to—Hank, what was the word?—_dismantle_ this life you've made. What you have with her isn't real."

"That's not true!" Buffy could feel the tears threatening as her hands balled into fists at her side. There was nothing to hit here. And she was sure that, even if she did hit something, it would hurt her a heck of a lot more. Which she supposed was what was normal. "I love her!"

Joyce reached out to smooth down her hair. "Oh, honey, I know you think you do, but think of how you've already sabotaged it, how you've already started to dismantle things—you can't die and, at the rate she's going, she'll die early. And think of the danger you pose to each other constantly. Honey, that's just you telling yourself that it's time to come home. "

"Mom, please…." That familiar voice. She closed her eyes in spite of herself. How often had she wanted to talk to her mom about all this?

"We're your home. We love you." Joyce's voice was breaking. Buffy couldn't bear to see it.

She launched forward into a hug. "I've missed you so much! I never got to tell you goodbye and how much I love you, but, mom, if you could just see her now, see everyone, Dawn, all adult and everything, see how we're all really trying…."

Joyce could only sigh. "Buffy, in your world, I'll never have that chance."

* * *

"Well, somebody's feeling good enough to be all pervie anyway."

Buffy jerked, realizing she was still staring at the dark slayer. Dawn gave her sister a look to accompany her comment, then rushed forward towards the new arrivals. Faith, in her turn, gave the blonde an amused eyebrow, allowing some of the tension in her shoulders to melt away. If Buffy wanted to look, well, that was normal. And for her to look adorably flustered by it all? That was pretty normal, too. She allowed her grin to widen.

"Dawn?" Buffy remembered she wanted to apologize for something earlier, but the younger Summers was already past her, talking to Xander. "I…." She trailed off.

Willow appeared, sweeping the group of them past Buffy down the basement stairs. Faith gave her a wink before she popped through the doorway. The blonde tried to wink back and then put up her hand to her face, wondering what it must look like.

She was still staring at the basement door when Tara touched her arm, feeling the waves of confused, distorted energy practically rolling off the slim slayer.

"Buffy?"

Wide green eyes turned towards her, uncomprehending.

"Buffy, it's just me…Tara." Buffy nodded and the witch wasn't sure whether that meant she remembered Tara's name or was thanking her for offering it. "Would you like me to try to help? I don't know how much I could, but…maybe something to help you sleep, just until they, you know, get the antidote?"

Sleep? Buffy couldn't remember the last time she'd slept.

Or ate for that matter. She forced her eyes to find the couch, a lamp, the window, the night outside. Anything but the pulse point at Tara's neck.

"Oh god, not again…." Buffy thought she had said it in her head, but, seeing the other girl's face, she knew she hadn't. And seeing Tara's face was the same thing as seeing her neck. The still-fading bite mark. Had she done that?

Tara's hands went up. "It's…it's okay, Buffy. It wouldn't be like when Willow…I just wanted to offer. You know I wouldn't do anything without your—"

"No!" The blonde vampire closed her eyes, shielding them with her hand. "I mean, yes. I mean, I think I need to lie down." And so she moved over to sink down into the couch, still rubbing her temple.

Tara hovered next to her. "Are you sure, because we don't…I just thought…."

Buffy blinked up at her, her voice small inside her. "Where do you think I'll be…when I sleep?"

A long pause. "I'm sorry, Buffy, but I just don't know."

She could only nod, having anticipated the not knowing. From the open door down into the basement, she could hear voices as everyone else attempted to secure the demon in the middle of her bedroom.

And then when Tara continued just standing there, Buffy could only say "please," feeling the warm hand touch her forehead before she drifted off.

* * *

"Don't the people at the hardware store wonder why you're always buying chains?"

"Probably just think it's kinky."

Giles gave his scowl to both Anya and Faith. "There are plenty of legitimate, everyday reasons that one might need chains."

"Yeah, An, he could be planning on playing Marley's ghost in this year's Christmas Carol."

Dawn nodded gravely at Xander. "And we all know how important authenticity is in those community theater productions."

Giles chose to ignore both of them, grunting a little as he pulled the metal links tight. Bound to one of the basement's support poles, the demon was beginning to wake and shift against its captivity.

"Or we could have just used the chains already up in here." Xander gestured over at the manacles that had hung above Buffy's bed before they moved it.

Anya was busy trying to figure out a place to ditch her rope. "Except that those are for Buffy and Faith's sex games." She settled on under the bed.

The dark slayer pulled the other end of the chain tight. "That, and I'm thinkin' extractin' skewers from demons with that kinda range of movement would be sorta like playin' a game of Pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey in hell."

Xander looked over at his wife. "She has a point." He noticed her expression. "And, no, I'm not going to install any manacles over our bed." A pause garnered a look from Faith and Willow. "Yes, I do have a line, people."

"Alrighty then." Willow clapped her hands, moving in with rubber gloves up to her elbows. "I think we're just supposed to stick something in…." She jabbed the demon's arm with a meat fork.

"Please tell me you're going to wash that before we have steak again."

"And, voila!" Willow took the now-extended spike and bent it back, breaking it off. The demon roared. She ignored it. "I'll need alkanet root and a handful of nettle leaf." A pause. "Just for the medicinal properties."

Faith raised her eyebrow, but kept her mouth shut and wandered upstairs.

* * *

"Hey, B. Ya missed out on some—" Faith caught sight of Tara's finger over her lips, then pointing down to the couch. The blonde slayer was curled up, murmuring in restless sleep. Tara watched the brunette's face, bare of all its swagger for the moment. Just a girl looking at a girl.

When Faith spoke again, her voice was so carefully hushed Tara had to lean in to hear it. "She probably needs it, huh?"

"I think so. I think it must be very confusing for her, not really knowing where she is."

"Well, your girl's workin' on the cure. Said she might could use your help." Willow hadn't said any such thing, but Faith figured it couldn't hurt to have the redhead a little more supervised. Tara perked up at the mention of Willow, but looked back down when Buffy shifted in her sleep. They could both see the slayer's eyes flickering rapidly behind her eyelids. "Don't worry…I'll take her someplace quiet."

"She can have my bed."

Faith and Tara looked up, having not noticed Dawn. The younger Summers stood at the edge of the living room, watching her sister.

Faith nodded, bending to scoop up the slight blonde into her arms. "Right." Cradling her, she headed for the stairs.

* * *

Buffy woke alone. There was a pressure point in her abdomen where the button of her jeans bit into her skin. She could see the moon.

The faint lines of bedspread and dresser and mirror. She sat up and wasn't reflected. Dawn's room? The house sat quiet around her.

The bedside lamp was turned to its lowest setting, a softer light than the "1:07" on the alarm clock. To one side, a note folded over and a cup.

_Buffy-- _

_We wanted to let you sleep, but finally got the antidote ready. Sorry it kind of smells and probably tastes worse! But no magic, so next time if you want cherry flavored…. ___

_Wake one of us when you get up!_

_--Willow_

She put the note where it had been, carefully folding it back. She picked up the cup and looked down into it. Her nose wrinkled at the smell. It had gone cold. She held it out in front of her as she moved towards the door.

Down the hallway she could hear breathing. Willow. Tara. Dawn. Everyone in their own room. Downstairs she found Xander and Anya curled on the couch. She stared at them for a moment. Then the kitchen, the dining room. No Faith.

She went down the stairs into the basement. Her bedroom. The demon was still chained there, quiet for the moment, eyeing her. Beyond it, her bed was empty. The metal clinked softly as the creature shifted to watch her move over to the bed, sit down on it. It was still unmade from earlier. She put a hand on the cold sheets.

Shifting again, the demon watched her leave the cup on the bedside table and walk back up the stairs. It heard the front door click shut.

* * *

Following the little tingle at the base of her spine, it didn't take long to find her counterpart. And feel the slightly different tingle of vampires. A lot of them. She pulled a stake out of her boot and flung it to take care of one sneaking up behind Faith.

The dark slayer raised an eyebrow at the dust that sifted down over her hair, but wasn't surprised to find Buffy there. She'd felt her come into the graveyard, and had relaxed into her fight.

"Good of ya to skimp on the beauty rest to help me with my homework assignment out here, B."

The blonde snapped off a roundhouse that sent one vampire flying back into a tree. She put her hand on her hip. "Is that a veiled comment about my looks?" She could do this. She was always good at quipping and fighting.

Faith gave her a sly grin, rolling back on her heels to avoid a telegraphed punch. "Well, I wasn't gonna mention the bedhead, but since you brought it up…."

"No fair!" The blonde pouted, her hand reaching up to smooth down the long waves of her hair. It flared out again as she spun into a kick. "Some of us don't have the benefit of a mirror, you know." She paused to scowl over at her vampire, who had inconveniently remained standing. She kicked him again because it felt good to. "Which means, of course, that you're not allowed to leave me to wake up alone again." Stumbling back from a punch, Faith fell into her arms.

Faith pulled her close for a minute, enjoying those green eyes glinting back at her in the dark. She leaned in to whisper. "Feelin' better?"

The blonde opened her mouth, but then abruptly ducked the branch that came at her head, hand guiding Faith's head down, too. The slayers crouched together and then launched off in different directions.

Faith flipped back to catch two vamps with a boot to the face. "Hey! We're tryin' to have some meaningful conversation over here!"

"I think you're just upset that I left you hanging in bed earlier." Buffy felt her face remembering how to grin. From Faith's reaction, she guessed she must have pretty good recall.

"Blue-ballin' isn't usually your style, B. So," the dark slayer shrugged, "then I knew you must be sick." She smiled as she landed a punch. "Glad Willow's chicken soup for the hallucinating did its number."

Buffy was stuck back at the word "sick," catching a flash of the hospital intruding. Those white walls. She fought it off. Not now! "Not sure you can really call it blue balls when there aren't any—"

Three vampires interrupted, having finally struck on the idea of attacking simultaneously. Between the three of them, they got two kicks in and one kidney shot that doubled Buffy over. She came up growling, her face sliding into demon before she could stop it. Feeling the fangs extend, her face went as blank as the vampires in front of her.

"Hey, you're—!"

Another one took less time about it, and reached up to pick up a branch off the ground. "Which means we know just how to kill you."

Faith dashed in just before he plunged it into her chest, spiriting her away to tumble across the ground. "Snap to, B." The blonde dutifully shook her head and then reached out to grab the branch before the vampire repurposed it as a club to bash in Faith's brains. Heaving it backwards, she left her stomach open to attack and took a vicious kick there. Clutching her ribs, she rolled away from his returning boot, looking over to see Faith flip up and punch out at two more.

They needed to start dusting some of these.

Picking the stake out of her other boot, she did just that, eliminating one of Faith's attackers from afar. The dark slayer blew her a kiss and went back to wailing on her other. And Buffy realized that was her last stake. It was time to start improvising.

Luckily, branch-boy was back again. She let the weapon rush down at her, catching it only at the last moment. With a twist, she wrenched it away and then pushed it back through its owner. His dust fell down in her mouth.

* * *

It was dry, cottony. Like they said the pills would make it.

"Just a few more, Buffy. The doctor thinks it won't take much now. Most of the work now is up to you."

The chill of a hard plastic chair filtered through the thin cotton of her pants.

* * *

The vampire pressed her into the gravestone, bending her over that cold stone. He had been going for her neck, out of habit, pulling up when he finally realized that wouldn't work. Struggling back into the moment, she let his momentum carry both of them back over the headstone together. Tangled on the other side, her elbow to his face kept him stunned long enough for her to grab one of her stakes from the ground and jam it home.

And then a body came flying over to land heavily on top of her. "Faith!" The dark slayer's jaw was reddening into a bruise as she rolled off the blonde.

"Sorry, B. Goddamn uppercut." She noticed the other girl grabbing her left side. "Your rib?"

Buffy groaned, massaging with fingers to tell if it was a crack or a break. She forced herself to talk through it. "Maybe you should lay off those twinkies—"

She was cut off by the stake—her own in a vampire's hand—whistling down at her. Twisting at the last moment, she felt it go into her shoulder instead and stick there. Screaming, each hand closed on a clump of grass and ripped it out by the roots.

"B! Fuck! Hold on!" Faith's hands were there, wincing when she pulled it out, knowing how much it must hurt. There was another scream that changed octaves into a half warning that managed the first three letters of her name. Without looking behind her, Faith lashed out, aim true enough for the vampire looming.

But not for the other one by his side. He swung his own branch and caught Faith full force in the side of her head. She dropped like a stone, eyes closed, rolled over on her side. Blood already flowing freely from her temple.

Buffy scrambled, crying out, placing her body over Faith's as the vampire kicked out. She could feel how still Faith was under her.

* * *

"That's it, sweety! I knew you could do it!"

"Do what—!" It hit her. "Hey, I didn't do that to her!"

The doctor was patient, hand on her arm. "Buffy, you're in control of everything that happens there."

* * *

"But I didn't—!" She was still protesting when the boot hit her side and her ribs, and the words devolved into a hoarse scream. She grabbed out blindly, hardly able to see through the pain, but a boot is a fairly big thing to grab and she found it, yanking hard.

She would pay for that later with her shoulder as she felt something pop. But it was worth it to pull the vampire down. Fumbling, found her stake and plunged it in and the graveyard was quiet.

Buffy hardly noticed.

"No, no, no, no…." She was fumbling now to push the other girl's jacket aside, find that pulse point. The faint, hopeful tremor. It was there. Underneath all the blood, Faith was pale but breathing.

All the blood.

* * *

"It's okay if you have to do it that way, honey."

"Do what—?" It dawned on her. "Oh god, I can't—" She caught the doctor's warning glance at her mother.

"Buffy, listen to me. You have to work within the world you've created. You've made yourself a vampire. In so many ways, that makes it easier for you to—"

* * *

All the blood. The smell of it. Almost knocking her over.

She staggered back on her knees, looked around wildly, seeing only the empty graveyard, all the headstones.

Faith moaned and Buffy's head snapped down to her. The pulse was stronger now in her neck. Her eyes didn't miss it. She knew what it meant.

So instead she squeezed her side. Hard. Forcing herself to go down on one hand then while the lightning show of pain played out on the inside of her eyelids. But she could still smell it, still feel the moan humming in her throat. The pain didn't make it go away and probably only made her want it more. Her side throbbed. The wound in her shoulder was a point of pain.

"Can't—" She wasn't sure who she was talking to.

She struggled to lift Faith, and nearly collapsed. Now the slayer's blood was on her clothes. She tried again, moving slowly, barely making it to a mausoleum before she went down on her knees. The brunette's head rested quietly against her chest. She forced the door and went inside, practically crawling at the end, putting Faith out of the way behind a tomb.

She meant to stay.

But then she was running and running, her mind elsewhere.

* * *

"You _can _do it, Buffy, I know you can. You've always been so strong."

"Mom…" Her eyes teared up. "Mom, I don't want to be that way."

And suddenly Buffy was pulled into her mother's embrace, feeling that familiar warmth, safety. "I know…I know." Whispered into her hair.

"Tell me what I have to do."


	47. Chapter 47

A/N: Greatly appreciate any thoughts...especially on a chapter like this one!

* * *

She bit off the corner of the bandage package with her teeth, then looked at the white square. Ridiculously small to cover what was essentially a quarter-sized hole in her shoulder. She forced herself to focus on the next package, and then the next, until she had three bandages open on the kitchen counter. Maybe that would do.

She swam through the pain and, a few minutes later, found herself looking everywhere for peroxide. Drawers rolled all the way out, cabinet doors left standing open. Hadn't someone been using it the other day? God knows they needed it often enough. She contemplated a corked bottle of white wine on the counter next to the sink.

Buffy felt herself laugh.

What did she need with a clean wound? Not like it was going to kill her.

Old habits die hard. She slapped the bandages on it, hissing as her ribs protested the awkward angle required. Her hand splayed itself out on the counter, white-knuckled, to steady her.

"Thought I heard someone rummaging in here. So I think to myself, maybe there are snacks or other late-night-slash-early-morning victuals to be—" Xander caught sight of her. "Holy shit, Buff!"

Standing in the middle of the kitchen in a bra and jeans, a patchwork of bandages on one shoulder. The flare of a bruise covering one side of her ribs. The blood smearing her neck and collarbone. The shirt on the floor next to her was stiff with it.

"You should have gotten one of us up!" He gulped, grabbing a wet washcloth and dabbing it over her to see how much of that blood was hers. "Not like we could help much with the pain—you're in pain, right?—but I know Tara's a pretty good hand with the bandages and I'm not so bad myself, what with all the times I've gotten beat up. Sooo, I'm just going to ignore the fact that you're half naked, and pray to god that Anya doesn't come in here, if you'll just sit up here on the counter—"

Her fist connected with his jaw. He went down in a heap, unconscious. She stared at him and then at the fingers she had used to make a fist.

* * *

"Xander!" The name became a whimper that went straight into the white wall Buffy was leaning into. It held her up, and she held on to it.

Her mom had her arms around her daughter, squeezing her. "It's okay, sweety, it's okay. This is better. Trust me."

* * *

Buffy was still staring when the ex-vengeance demon came in.

"If you're raiding Buffy's fridge again, I swear, Xander. I will not be married to a man with a middle-aged paunch, and— Oh, hi, Buffy."

The slayer blinked from Xander's body to that of his wife.

Anya gave her an eyebrow. "Um, you might want to do something about the…you know." She motioned in the direction of the smeared blood. Buffy's hand went up to touch it. "And I would sort of appreciate it if you would attempt to remain clothed around—"

She spotted Xander. Her eyes bulged and her mouth opened to make a little squeaking sound as she looked back up to Buffy.

"You…Did you…You knocked him…Xander!" She took a step towards him. Buffy stepped in her way. "Of course…you're a slayer, so you're probably going to slay him next because that's what you do, and everyone's going to be sooo surprised and they'll say they never saw it coming because you're their Buffy, even though you're a slayer and it's not like the name slayer is ambiguous or anything—"

And then Buffy was there, with her hand clamped firmly over Anya's mouth, fumbling around in the junk drawer with her other hand for the duct tape, some twine.

* * *

It took someone to see her go to know that she was leaving something behind.

When Spike saw Buffy bolt out of the mausoleum, he flirted with the idea of following her. She was Buffy, after all. And then there was the fact that he could see her staggering, he could smell the blood. She might need his help, and he could be there to give it on his own terms, with its own price. But, in the end, he was too far away really, and she was running too fast back home.

So instead he contented himself with seeing what she was running from.

Like most mausoleums, it was cool and still. Collected dust. A few leaves had blown inside. There was an intermittent trail through them and through the dust. Recent. Leading to the dark slayer splayed out in a corner.

An incapacitated dark slayer, he might add. Was there ever a prettier sight to a vampire? That long ivory stretch of throat. The tang of blood. Those closed eyes. Fingers unfisted and empty. Easy prey, for once.

In a rush, his face had changed and he had lunged in. Only to promptly hit the wall of the chip in his head.

He shrieked, grabbing his head and falling back, away from the prone beauty. "Fuckin' bint!" He kicked out at her, reflexively, only to feel another jab of pain before his foot could find its target. Another scream.

It was very nearly enough to wake the dead. And certainly enough to cause an unconscious slayer to stir. Spike was still growling a stream of curses when Faith reached out, grabbed his boot, and pulled it out from under him.

"What the—Hey!" He went down with a thud, his black duster flapping around him, sending the leaves skittering.

Faith was working on standing, amid a wave of dizziness. "How the hell did you ever stay undead this long? You're about as fuckin' stealthy as a howler monkey."

"Yeah, well, weren't for this goddamned chip in my head, you'd be dead and drained, Slayer."

"Luckily I don't care whether you got a chip or not." She talked through gritted teeth, tentatively reaching up to her forehead and finding it sticky with blood.

"Right…you just go after those vamps what can't hurt anybody." He curled his lip, keeping a healthy distance between himself and the slayer, now that he'd regained his feet. "Anybody ever explain just what your job is, anyway?"

She scowled. "Thinkin' the last person I'm gonna take career advice from is you."

"Just 'cause you don't want to stake your precious princess."

That was true, but it didn't change matters for him. "You ain't B." She was actively looking now for a stake, wondering how much she could trust to her balance if she let go of the tomb.

"Yeah, can't all of us be petite."

Faith stared at him for a moment. "You want to be—?" She shook her head. "You know what, I'm not having this conversation. I'm not gonna sit here and talk about B—"

"We all know you're more of a do-er." A leer snuck across his face. "What's it like feelin' her moanin' under you, wrappin' those tight little thighs around you…."

With a growl she lunged towards him. He danced back, and she nearly fell. Turns out the balance still wasn't great.

"Temper, temper. Just 'cause you girls had a little spat don't mean you gotta take it out on me."

"Spat?" Her brow furrowed as she tried to remember. The sight of the elder slayer with the stake sticking out of her shoulder. "Oh, fuck. B!" A wound like that…. "I gotta—" And then she was gone, running. Saving Spike for another day.

The blonde vampire watched her go. "If not a fight, then…?" He knelt next to the floor where the dark slayer had lain, bringing two bloody fingers to his lips.

* * *

Buffy found the stairs and went up. Her mother's house, still. There were pictures of all of them on the wall. She was carrying rope. She'd found it under her bed.

Tara stepped out into the hallway, hair tousled from sleep. "Oh, Buffy, it's just you. Did the antidote—?" She stopped, seeing the blonde slayer pass through a shaft of moonlight, silver gleaming off pale skin and bandages. Tara saw a muscle in the vampire's jaw jump. "Buffy? Are you…?"

She didn't need to finish it, having time only to cast a worried glance over her shoulder to the redhead sprawled out in their bed behind her, try to position herself in the doorway. The strike hit her neck before she had a chance to turn back around.

The blonde busied herself with tying knots.

When she looked up, Willow was in the doorway, mouth hanging open, seeing Tara crumpled and bound. Then the eyes darkening.

The slayer understood the threat.

In a blur, the blonde had yanked her out into the hall, sending her flying across it. The sheetrock shivered as Willow slammed into the other side, any breath to talk or scream knocked out of her. She dropped to her knees, reaching out to catch at Buffy, but only finding skin she could not grab. She fell, finally, to the ground, the back of her head already bleeding a little from a second blow.

* * *

"Willow!" Buffy cried out, banging the side of her head into the wall over and over as if to knock the image out of it. "Will!" She was in the corner of the hospital room. As far into it as she could get. In other rooms, other people were screaming in their own other worlds.

* * *

Buffy looked down at the statue in her hand. One of the few still left in the house from the gallery. She put it back neatly on the hall table where it had been and walked towards Dawn's room. Her sister was already halfway up from the bed.

"God, can't you guys keep it down!" She made a face at her sister, seeing her now in the dim light. "And since when did you stop wearing shirts? The whole house doesn't want to know what you and Faith—" She noticed Buffy's clenching and unclenching hands, the wide eyes. "Buffy?"

The teenager stepped close, putting the back of her hand to the older girl's forehead. Buffy flinched back at the touch. "No…don't…." She couldn't say the name.

"Buffy, you're burning up."

The blonde shook her head roughly, staring at the ground. "No. No, this is just…this is the way it has to be." Her mouth set.

Dawn's hand wavered. "It's a fever. It's just a fever…. Didn't you drink the…?" She took a step back.

Buffy took a step forward, to match.

Dawn made a sudden lunge to get around the slayer to the door, but she was working against two demons bred to prevent escape. Buffy's body moved faster than her mind or her will. Muscle memory. Catching the brunette around the waist and spinning to throw her back in the room. Dawn crashed across the vanity, sweeping all those teenage things on top of it to the ground with her.

"Buffy!" As if she was crying out for someone else.

Dawn could not look at her sister, scrambling instead for the window, her fear a whimper in her throat. The slayer grabbed a leg and pulled her back, pinning her underneath in a terrible parody of every sibling wrestling match.

The blonde's fist pulled back, trembling. Unable to fall.

So, instead, she pressed her mouth into a line and hoisted the younger, struggling girl over her shoulder. Dawn screamed then and kept screaming until they made it out into the hallway and she saw there was no one to help.

* * *

In the basement, they made a line of unconscious or gagged and struggling bodies. Buffy hugged her arms around her body as she stared at them, eyes wide. Chains rattled behind her as the demon yearned for its chance. She turned, standing between it and them. Then moving to let it go.

Behind her, muffled words became muffled screams.

Buffy backed herself under the stairs, unable not to watch.

* * *

Squeezed between the wall and her mother, Buffy cried out.

Joyce held tight, feeling the tremor running through her daughter, the girl's urge to throw herself repeatedly into the wall until she broke through, or hurt herself trying.

In the background, Buffy's dad, the doctor. She could hear their voices from underwater. Long, calming vowels. It would be alright. It would be alright. It would be alright.

* * *

The demon went for the moving ones first, smelling their fear. Anya scrambled backwards, on her knees, then toppling. It grabbed her leg and hauled her back.

Dawn tried a bull rush, but couldn't stop herself in time when it turned, ready for her. Threw her into the washing machine. She bounced off it and struggled to pick herself back up.

A glance in her sister's direction. "Buffy! You've got to—!" Cut off by the demon's backhanded swipe that knocked her down again.

Xander awakened, tied to a support pole. "An! Dawn!" The demon looked up at its new target. Xander danced left as the demon came right for him around the beam. But it was not a big beam, and he was bound to it. The punch snapped his head back. The rope kept him from going down. He worked it against the beam's corner, seeing the twine fray. "Buffy!?!" Noticing the blonde under the stairs. "Buff, what are you…?"

He didn't have time to finish it as the demon came flying at him, and he lurched back, finally breaking his bonds. He stumbled with the sudden release, and caught the blow aimed at him full-force. It flung him easily back into the brick. He winced and hit back, getting in a lucky shot to send the demon tripping into a pole.

Xander crawled to Anya's side and ripped the tape off her mouth.

She spoke as soon as it was away. "Xander!"

"Anya! Are you—?" His eyes looked for blood and didn't find much, yet. "What's wrong with Buffy?" In the shadows, Buffy was shaking her head violently back and forth.

"Duh! She obviously didn't take the antidote. It certainly wasn't my bright idea to let the crazy girl with super powers self-medicate!"

"She didn't—?"

But he had to leave it there, seeing the demon turning now towards Willow, still unconscious on the floor. The monster touched one hand to the arm where its skewer had been ripped out. It remembered and, roaring, ran for the witch. Tara, waking, tried to throw herself in the way. Willow woke up just in time to see it.

"Tara, no!"

It threw the blonde witch aside like nothing, and she was still once again.

"What the hell's everyone doing down in the basement? And where's—?" Faith entered just as Xander jumped on the demon's back and then was flung off into the stairs. He rolled down them ahead of Faith. "Oh shit!"

Leaping over the banister, placing herself in the demon's path. Two feints, ducking under the skewer that sliced through the air. Her punch landed and the demon growled. From behind, Dawn swung at it with a hammer and might have broken something, but that only made it madder.

"D! Watch out!" Faith pulled back the skewer heading towards the younger Summers. Which turned it on herself. As she ducked, she saw the redhead's lips beginning to move. "Shut it, Red! Too close in here! I got this!" And with the glint of the slayer in her eye she got into the game, pounding the demon back until finally, with a roundhouse, she sent it sprawling to the floor.

* * *

"She's going to save them! Faith's going to save them!" Buffy jumped to her feet, pacing next to the hospital bed. She hardly saw the orderly move forward. Hardly saw the doctor's small gesture for him to stay put. His calm turn towards her, the voice of this place.

"Buffy, this doesn't solve things. Faith is only the other half of you."

The blonde looked over, eyes pleading. The doctor, her parents, they could all only smile sadly in return.

"You still know what you have to do. You have the means to take care of her."

* * *

"No!"

The dark slayer heard the cry and felt herself wrapped up from behind. Her arms pinned to her side. She didn't have to turn around. She knew.

"B?" She struggled. A reflex. She wanted to turn to see the other girl. Confirm that she was alright after earlier. She knew the wounds must still be there, must make it hurt for the blonde to hold her like this. But held she was. Unable to move.

"I can't let you. I'm sorry…Faith." The vampire almost stumbled over the name. The voice was right in Faith's ear. Everyone else in the room was watching, breathless. The muscles under Buffy's bare skin straining. The black bra in stark relief. The red bloom spreading again on her bandaged shoulder. Arms wrapped around Faith.

Faith didn't have to turn to know Buffy's fangs were out. The slayer in her already had its stake in hand. Fingers reaching up to unwind the blonde's grip. To loosen, then spin, then stake. That was what a slayer would do.

The audience had seen it all enough to know what ought to be coming. To know to train their eyes on the splinter of wood. No one wanted to cheer this one on. Faith watched their eyes there, then watched the collective gaze hasten up over her shoulder. Widening eyes.

She felt the teeth grazing her neck.

And everything else was far away. The slayer. The hand holding the stake was someone else's. The teeth were someone else's. Just her and Buffy. All the times they'd tried to hurt each other, kill each other. All the time spent at the crackling, polarizing extremes of each other. All behind them. Faith knew she could not go back there. That was not where they were. It was not where she was, now.

She was here.

Buffy was here with her. Underneath the confusion, still. Faith could feel her.

"I…. Faith, I don't want it to hurt." The quiet voice next to her neck. Tears on it, mixing with Faith's own. Did it really matter the how and the why of everything else?

Faith hardly felt the teeth slip through her skin. Hardly heard the gasps, the protests from the room, calling Buffy's name, hers. The hesitation that kept everyone from moving, afraid to escalate.

Buffy's embrace, carefully holding her up as she became weaker. Or lighter. Narrowing down. The clarity of focus. All she'd ever wanted.

In the blur of the room around them: the demon moving again, everyone moving, the preparations for attack.

It was all so far away. Faith could feel the blood going now. Her body colder, matching those arms that wrapped her close. She felt her fingers let go, and the stake clattered down to the floor, unneeded. Her whole body letting go. Almost everything done.

"I love you." Faith's voice was so thin, hardly audible except to the one so close she would hear anything. "Buffy, I love you."

And Buffy froze. Her teeth buried in her lover's neck, she froze. And trembling, started to pull away.

It was then that the wave of magic hit them. Hit Buffy and Faith and the demon and sent them all flying backwards into the brick of the basement wall, where they all sank down, tangled in a heap.

The rest of them turned to look at Willow.

"Well, somebody had to do something."


	48. Chapter 48

A/N: Didn't mean to make y'all wait so long for this one! Life conspired. But here it is! And thanks so much for the great, great reviews on the last chapter!!

* * *

Dawn and Xander were already rushing towards the fallen slayers, her "Buffy!" only a second ahead of his "Faith!" The both of them scrambled to drag the girls away from the demon they were tangled with. Dawn pulled her sister's head in her lap, cradling it. The bandage on Buffy's shoulder was nearly soaked through.

Anya brushed the basement dust off the seat of her pants. "Well, I guess we should be grateful the sorcerer's apprentice over here didn't knock the whole place down." Willow scowled at her, then glanced past to see Tara rubbing her head.

"Tara!" The redhead slid down next to her. "Baby, are you okay?" Seeing the blonde just sporting a nasty bruise, she tried out her stern face. "You shouldn't have put yourself in the way like that… even though it was sweet…still bad. It could've been bad."

Dawn's hands were still fluttering around uselessly, trying to find something other than a pulse or breath. Buffy gave her little to go on.

"Since there's no dust, I think it's safe to say Buffy is probably still just dead." The ex-vengeance demon considered. "And likely still psychotic. Which is a cheery thought." At Anya's words, the younger Summers looked over, staring. Anya shrugged. "It's just a suggestion, but Faith might be the one in more need of attention. What with the big bleeding neck wound."

Xander was way ahead of her. "Got a heartbeat. Faint, but it's there." He was already scooping the limp slayer up into his arms and running up the stairs. He kept his hand pressed to her neck to staunch the blood. Her hair fell in her face as her head lolled against his chest. "An. Car."

Anya was still thinking. "Or maybe it's a toss-up really. Crazy vampire on a killing rampage, on the one hand. Or slayer that decides to give up the killing game right when there's something that actually needs killing. Tough choice, but I'm still going to go with—"

"Anya!" The younger Summers' voice and glare cut through her reverie.

"Anya? Now…please? I'm not Buffy…I can't carry her forever." Xander wasn't waiting to see how long he could hold her.

"If you ask me Buffy's not doing so well with that herself." Muttering, Anya nonetheless hurried up the stairs after him. Dawn, Willow, and Tara all had their faces turned towards that door and the weakened slayer who had just been rushed through it. Sighing, Dawn returned her attentions again to her sister, combing her fingers through the older girl's unruly blonde waves. Unsure what else would help.

"Shouldn't we do something about…?" Tara reached around Willow to point at the demon sprawled only a few feet from Dawn and Buffy.

The younger Summers followed her eyes and pulled her sister's still body closer, even though the demon hadn't moved. For good measure, Willow cast a binding spell to hold it in place. And then looked around, daring somebody to say something. After she'd been the one to actually _do_ something a few minutes earlier.

Tara just watched the demon and Buffy. The dangerous things in the room. She couldn't help but see the demon roaring towards Willow. The beautiful vampire stalking her in the hallway.

Dawn's brow furrowed as she stared down at her sister's unwholesome flush. "So did the antidote not work? Because if that was it working…." She didn't need to say anymore. They'd all been there. They all had the bruises and the near-death experience to prove it.

Willow picked up the cup of partly congealed elixir next Buffy's bed, frowning. "Well, for it to work, you have to actually take it." So she marched over to see that her friend took it this time, her resolve face wasted on a girl who couldn't see it.

"Don't you think we ought to wait until she—?"

Dawn's question went unfinished as the redhead was already holding the blonde's head in one hand and touching the cup to lips with the other. "Buffy the patient? Turns out not so good at following doctor's orders." She forced those lips to open and poured the antidote in. Buffy sputtered, choking on it, eyelids fluttering not quite open, before the potion found the right pipe and went down. Her murmurs subsided again into unconsciousness and her cheek came to rest against Dawn's hand.

"Will that be enough?"

Willow tucked a lock of blonde hair behind the sleeping slayer's ear. "I hope so." A pause and she squared her shoulders. "It will be. But until then, we should get her into bed and call Giles. And hope Xander made it in time with Faith."

* * *

Giles hit the swinging doors of the emergency room at a run. Behind him they swung back and forth, open and shut, open and shut. They didn't finally still themselves until he had already stopped, panting, at the nurses station. Snatches of the conversation carried in down the hall.

"Well, I don't know what last name she's…and how many Faiths could one possibly…No, Rupert Giles, her _guardian_, and I—"

Thankfully Xander motioned to him from the hallway, halfway out of a room. Giles left the nurse waiting for the end of his sentence to start a new unfinished thought.

"Is she—?"

"It took a lot of blood, but yeah." He ran his hand back through his hair. The hospital lighting wasn't doing the bruise on his jaw any favors. "They've got her stabilized now."

Giles saw the pale slayer looking small on the bed, asleep. In spite of everything else, she was small. A girl, really. A large bandage covered half her neck. Various machines were beeping. He closed his eyes and sank down in a chair. "Thank god she's all right." Then looked up, regarding the bandage. "What on earth did you tell them?"

"Tragic meat fork accident."

He did a double-take. "They believed that?"

"I guess." Xander shrugged. "They seemed more concerned that Anya and I were having some sort of domestic violence issue, what with the bruises."

Anya proudly pointed to her own purple splotch. "There was a theory floated that the two of us got in an argument over Faith, and that Faith got the worst of it." This time it was Anya's turn to shrug. "And then it seemed like the nurse thought the whole thing was above her pay grade to figure out, and so, since we didn't appear to be immediately interested in harming Faith, she left us alone." Anya sat down in a chair in the corner as if to say "the end."

Giles could only stare at her, then back down to Faith. "The people in this town are deeply incurious."

Xander was still standing, watching the machines confirm Faith's status. "How's Buffy?"

Giles looked even more tired. "I came straight here, so I haven't seen her. But, from what Tara says, she's sleeping." He wiped a smudge from his glasses. "And she has actually taken the antidote now, thanks to Willow."

"Our very own Nurse Ratched."

Giles gave a half-smile. "Yes, well, perhaps Willow was right to be more proactive about that, given the circumstances." He looked back to Faith, who was still breathing, slow and deep. "We could have lost everyone. All of you. Both slayers."

"Or just one of them." When Giles looked over, Anya continued, by way of explanation. "Faith picked a really great time to leave behind the whole killing thing."

Giles raised an eyebrow at Xander, who confirmed it. "She wouldn't do it." He paused, thinking. "She didn't have a problem with the demon, but when it came to Buff…. She just stood there and let her drink." He could still see the two of them, clasped together in the dark basement, Buffy's mouth bending in, Faith's own mouth open, her neck arching to one side. He could see how it might have been hard to say no. And in the same instant he realized, looking back, that it hadn't just been about letting go. Faith had made a decision. He filed that away.

The Englishman looked back at the dark slayer, watching her sleep. He sighed. "Given her—or rather their—history, perhaps we should be grateful. This would seem to be a better problem to have, especially now that Buffy's had the antidote."

"Yeah, and there's hope for Faith. In the end Buffy was still able to kill Angel when she needed to."

Both Xander and Giles turned to stare at Anya. She just stared back.

"Well, I didn't say there weren't casualties along the way."

* * *

It was evening when Giles pulled himself out of the corner chair in search of tea. He hoped that wouldn't be too optimistic for the hospital cafeteria. It seemed a suitably bland thing to have for patients. But one could never tell.

In the hallway, he nearly collided with the blonde slayer, who was resolutely putting one foot in front of the other as she made her way down the tile floor, looking into every room.

"Good lord…Buffy! You're awake!" He pulled the slight girl into a hug, trying to force back the tears that threatened. "I'm so glad that— And how are you feeling? Did the antidote—? Tara said that you were sleeping, and Xander and I were both concerned…."

The blonde winced at her friends' names, but let herself smile back at her former watcher, relaxing a little. "Be careful, Giles. I hear Willow's babbling is contagious. And you know what that would do to your reputation for British reserve."

The Englishman pulled back to look at her again, seeing her favor her shoulder a little where he had squeezed a little too hard in his relief. He took a breath and slowed himself down. "Quite right. Let's keep it simple: Are you feeling yourself again?"

"Just one Buffy in here now." She nodded, tapping the side of her head.

"Well, that's certainly a relief. I had heard that Willow administered the antidote." He saw a shadow pass across her features. His expression softened at the experience and sadness etched into that otherwise young, beautiful face. In any normal world, she would not have been like this. "I'm sorry, Buffy. I know these last twenty-four hours must have been difficult for you." He looked around at the hospital bustling around the two of them. "And I'm sure to come here, to a hospital, right after…."

Buffy's eyes focused on his face, rather than the disorienting white tile, the sterile smell. "I had to… Faith." The last word was a sentence in and of itself. Her gaze strayed over to the room Giles had come out of. "How is she?" Her voice wavered.

He took a breath and straightened up and could feel himself getting ready to say something vaguely lecturing. But, as he watched the furrow in her brow, he forced himself to swallow it. Didn't she already know what he was going to say? Her lips still carried the flush of what she'd done and what she'd nearly done. Him saying it wouldn't make it any worse than she was already making it for herself.

And, watching her, it came to him suddenly that she loved Faith.

He hoped that would be a good thing.

"Given how anxious she is to get out of here, I would say her slayer is speeding her recovery." He waved a hand towards the doorway, giving Buffy permission. "I'm sure she would like to see you."

The blonde looked skeptical, but tried to steel herself. Just before she walked through, she turned back to Giles, her eyes wide and young again. "Could you give us a minute?"

"Of course." He went to take his time with his tea.

* * *

"Did you bring me some food? I think they're tryin' to starve me or—" Faith felt the base of her spine tighten. She looked to the doorway, realizing even before she looked that she wouldn't find the Englishman returning. "B." The break in her voice belied the single syllable simplicity of it.

As if hearing the dark slayer's nickname for her broke some spell, the blonde rushed to the bedside, her mouth also rushing ahead of itself. "Ohmygod, Faith, I'm so sorry! I didn't mean— I didn't want to— I'm so glad you're okay! You're okay, right? Giles said you were getting better!" Her fingers hesitated on their way to the taped edge of the bandage on Faith's neck.

Those brown eyes watched her for a second. Then Faith cleared her throat and arched an eyebrow, sliding into a wry grin. "Easy there, turbo. Did Red mix some speed in with that antidote?"

Buffy blinked, then shifted to match the dark slayer's bantering tone. "Turns out that a Willow-made cure has certain side effects."

"So what, next you're gonna be all gay and shit?"

The blonde slayer raised her own eyebrow. "Afraid I'm going to try to recruit you, Faith?"

Faith laid back, hands behind her head. "Not sure your cooking skills are capable of dealin' with a toaster, but recruit away." Buffy couldn't have kept her eyes from sliding down the other girl's body, even if she had wanted to. Those breasts, raised now by the position of her arms, their shape hinted at by the thin material of the hospital gown. Nipples tight in the cool air. The darker circle of them coming faintly through. She felt her body shiver.

Faith chuckled, enjoying Buffy's rapt attention. Hearing the sound, the blonde slayer looked back up to meet her eyes. And then caught sight of the glaring white of the bandage on the other slayer's neck. Testimony to her inability to control other desires.

Buffy winced, turning away as she sank down on an open spot on the bed, talking to the wall and the rest of the empty room. "I could've…."

"Wasn't you, B." Faith dropped the act, bringing her arms back down in front of her. She touched the back of one knuckle to the blonde's thigh.

"But you didn't stop me. If you had let me…you know I never could have forgiven myself." So quiet Faith had to strain to hear it.

Neither of them spoke for a moment. Faith finally broke it.

"B, you _did_ stop. Right at the end there." She paused. A million ways to go on and move the conversation to something else. Some wisecrack. Any number of things she would have normally said. But instead: "You know, when I said—"

Buffy leapt in, eyes still skittering around the room. "Right, I know. People say things when they think they're about to die, and it doesn't necessarily mean—"

Faith leaned forward and clapped a hand across the blonde's running mouth. She moved so close behind her that she could smell her scent with every inhale. "You really are gettin' as bad as Red." The elder slayer tried to open her mouth again under Faith's hand. "Hey, just shut it and listen for a minute 'cause this isn't really my thing and I might have a hard time gettin' it out twice." She felt Buffy's lips purse shut under her fingers, green eyes locked on hers. "Good girl." Faith took a deep breath. "I meant it. What I said. I meant it."

She exhaled and took her hand from the other girl's mouth. Buffy felt as though she could breath again. Her eyes had closed and a tear clung to the corner of one.

After a moment, Faith spoke again. "Okay, so that actually came out shorter than I thought it was gonna be…."

Buffy turned to tuck her forehead against the other girl's cheek. She felt the lips press against her temple, and let the tear roll down her cheek. She spoke into Faith's skin. "She told me…she said it wasn't real."

"Your mom?"

And then the flood of hurt and relief that Buffy had worked to hold back happened anyway and she was crying, gasping, at all of it and Faith was holding her now, pulling Buffy back to lie next to her on the small hospital bed, feeling the blonde curl closer, shaking, unable to stop, now that she'd started.

Faith had no idea what to do, so she just held her, rubbing her thumb back and forth across the other girl's back, amazed that this was the same Buffy she'd met years ago. This Buffy that, since Faith had found her in Cleveland, had been by turns desperate and dangerous and delusional, and probably several other "d" words she wasn't thinking of, to say nothing of the rest of the alphabet. And she was clinging now to Faith. And Faith loved her, had loved her for so long, and held on.

"Shh, B…s'okay, s'okay."

Great, hiccupping sobs. "I could've…killed…I wanted to…."

"S'okay, B. Didn't happen."

Buffy could hardly speak. "And then…I didn't…Will gave me the…and I never…got to say goodbye. Again."

Faith silently cursed the redheaded witch. But what could she say? "B, I'm sorry, but your mom wasn't…." She wanted to say "real," but the word seemed too harsh to say about someone's mother.

Big green eyes looked up at her, rimmed red now. "Does that matter?"

Faith met those eyes and felt a knot in the center of her stomach at the expression in them. "No. Guess it don't, really."

Buffy nodded and flopped her head back down on Faith's chest. Her shaking was gradually subsiding into periodic shivers, until Faith felt her tense again. "Oh god! How am I ever going to make it up to everybody? What I did…"

Faith ran her fingers down through those blonde tresses. "They're the Scoobs, B. They love you. They know it wasn't your fault, so it's not like you're gonna have to regain their trust—"

"But I almost—"

"Well, what'd they say before you came over here?"

Long pause. "Um…I kind of snuck out."

Faith stared at the top of the blonde's head where it rested on her. "Okaaay. Probably not your best first step back on trust road."

Buffy made a face. "I didn't know what to say."

"Not to be all maternal and shit, but don't you think they might be wondering where you went? You know, what with…everything? Did you leave a note?"

The blonde looked sheepish.

"Jesus. They're gonna think I'm rubbin' off on ya." She ran a hand back through her hair. "Wouldn't want little D worryin'." She sighed. "Maybe we should tell Giles to let them know or somethin'?"

"Tell Giles what?" The Englishman came back into the room with his cup of tea. He wouldn't tell them it was his fourth. He hadn't known how much time they would need. Coming in, he took in the picture of them: Buffy curled into Faith's side, the dark slayer's arm draped around her. Who could tell…it just might work.

"Seems B kinda belatedly realized some folks might be wonderin' where she skipped off to."

"I see." He forced himself to take a sip of his tea and not say anything else.

"Um…maybe you could tell Dawn I'm here?" Buffy shifted to almost face him, her hand still clutching the front of Faith's hospital gown.

He cleared his throat. "Perhaps you'd like to go tell her yourself. Especially since Faith will soon be occupied with the psychologist." He looked at the dark slayer, his expression an apology. "The nurse told me one would be on the way. Again, a formality with this sort of injury."

He hardly had the words out when Faith had her legs over the other side of the bed. Buffy looked every bit as startled that the brunette was no longer in her arms.

"So we'll all go tell Dawn, all personal like." Faith was already putting on her clothes, reaching out to steady herself on the windowsill. She looked up to find Buffy and Giles both staring at her. "What? I'm sure as hell not waitin' around for some shrink again. Look what kinda fuckin' disaster that was last time."


	49. Chapter 49

A/N: Because y'all deserve a break....

* * *

Dawn flung the door open. Buffy was just reaching for the lock with her key. The sisters stared at each other, wide-eyed and mouths open.

Giles cleared his throat and walked around the two of them and into the house. Better to let the Summers' women work these sorts of things out on their own. Faith promptly decided that a cigarette out on the porch was the best thing for her and walked away to light a match in the dusky evening light.

"Buffy!" Dawn's look was resolving itself from relief to anger.

"Dawn! I, um, was just—"

"Just dropping by to say 'hello'…see if I'd like to buy a set of encyclopedias?"

"Huh?" She snapped to the sarcasm. "Oh, um…no. No books of knowledge here. Just me." A pause. "You're mad."

"Duh." Arms folded across her chest.

Buffy felt the tears threatening at the corners of her eyes again. "Dawn, you know I never wanted to hurt—"

Dawn rolled her eyes. "Buffy, I'm not stupid. I know the trying-to-kill-everybody wasn't your fault." Her sister's shoulders relaxed a little, but Dawn quickly followed up. "The sneaking out, though…that's got Buffy written all over it." She didn't have to say there was precedent for worrying.

"Oh." The blonde played with the string on her hoody. Her voice was suitably small in the face of the younger girl's glare. "I'm sorry. I was going to come back! I just went to—" She shrank a little at Dawn's skeptical eyebrow. "I just…I didn't know how to face everyone. It seemed like 'oh, gee, my bad' wasn't really going to cut it."

"And if you had stayed around long enough to say that, I might have smacked you upside the head _before_ I hugged you to death."

Then neither one of them could keep it up any longer and they rushed to hold on to each other. Two siblings in a tempest, clinging. Their mother was there, too, even if they couldn't bear, for different reasons, to talk about her now.

"I won't do it again." Buffy's vow as they pulled apart.

The younger girl nodded solemnly, and they'd made a pact. "You'd better go inside. They're worried, too." And so Buffy squared her shoulders, looked over at the dark slayer leaning over the porch rail, smoking, gave her a tight-lipped smile, and then went inside.

* * *

Dawn stayed on the porch, arms still crossed across her chest. Faith kept her gaze straight ahead, even though she could feel the younger girl's gaze. She decided she might as well bite that bullet.

"Guess I owe you an apology, too."

Dawn's brow furrowed. "For…?"

"Not bein' there when you guys needed me."

The younger Summers arched an eyebrow. "You seriously want me to be mad at you for _not_ killing my sister?"

Faith scowled. "No, but—" She crushed her spent cigarette under her heel. "—I'm supposed to be some sort of protector or shit. I mean, isn't that what B does?"

"_You_ _and_ Buffy both do the whole protecting Sunnydale from badness thing—not that I am admitting I need protection because I totally broke that demon's rib—but Buffy wasn't _really_ bad. Ergo, no apology required."

Faith opened her mouth, shut it, then opened it again. "Not even gonna touch that Summers logic." She studied Dawn for a moment, brows knit. "Okay, I'll bite, then. What's with the crossed arms?"

Dawn looked down at herself, then back up at the dark slayer. "This? Oh, this is what parents always do when interrogating their children's suitors."

"Suitors? What the fuck? Are you takin' lessons from Giles?"

Dawn pursed her lips at the comment, attempting a stern expression. "Faith, I know you said you love her…."

The dark slayer's mouth fell open.

"Well, hello, it's not like I can't read lips!"

Faith composed herself and stuck another cigarette between her lips. Dawn watched her fumble around with the lighter. She finally managed to get it lit and drew in deep.

When Faith finally spoke, her voice was hoarse. "So that's what you're mad about, huh? Me and Blondie?"

"Mad?" The younger Summers dropped the act. "Um, no. I may never, _ever_, want to see you guys getting all…you know…again, because, hey, the last two times, that was pretty scarring. But mad?" She leaned against the railing next to Faith. "I didn't get it at first, but I kind of do now, and it's okay. I'll even go with good. I've seen the way she looks at you." She saw Faith blink, trying to see Buffy seeing her, still amazed. "I just…you know, with your past and everything…I just want her to be happy."

Faith looked over at Dawn, who was looking out into the evening. Then she turned to stare out at it herself. "Yeah, I get that."

"I know you're not promise girl. And the moment we make a promise around here there's bound to be some prophecy or apocalypse. But I'd just—" She stopped and restarted, waiting until she caught those dark eyes with her own. "I just want you to try."

Faith held that gaze and nodded.

Dawn clapped her hands together and spun around to face the front door of the house. "Right. And if you don't, some monks made it so I've got enough slayer in me to kick your ass." She met the dark slayer's eyebrow with her own, then grinned. "So let's go see how the party inside's going."

* * *

As they opened the door, it was clear that, if there had been a party, it had involved precious little merriment. Buffy and Willow both had red-rimmed eyes. Tara had her arm around Buffy. Giles was looking serious. Xander was trying to make a joke. Anya was sitting there.

"Okay!" Dawn had taken in the situation quickly. She slapped a big grin on her face and looped her arm through Faith's. "So, Faith and I are going to go Bronze it."

Buffy and Faith had simultaneous "you're what?" "we are?" moments. There was a general staring silence.

"Yep. Gonna go get on my dancing shoes. And possibly a skirt the size of a handkerchief…."

Buffy just looked perplexed. "But, Dawn, it's—" She reached over, grabbed Giles' watch and looked at it. "okay, so it's ten-thirty. But still…."

Dawn adopted Willow's resolve face and added a little teenage flavoring. "I swear, Buffy, if you say ten-thirty is too late for me to go out on a Friday night, I will be contractually obligated to throw a tantrum."

"I dunno, Buff," Xander looked over at the blonde slayer, shrugging. "She's got a point. And, you know, if she's gonna go, it would seem only prudent for her to have a chaperone. Or plural chaperones." He gave his wife an eyebrow as if to say "what about it?"

Faith stuck out her lower lip. "What am I, chopped liver?"

Willow looked at the pouty brunette and turned to level a look at the rest of the group. "Yeah, I think someone had better keep Dawn and her miniscule skirt from trouble." She had threaded her fingers through Tara's.

Dawn jumped on the redhead's bandwagon. "Willow's right. There will totally be trouble if Faith and I go there together." Dawn hooked a thumb at Faith, who was looking bemused behind her. "I mean, have you seen the amount of leather that girl wears? It's a whole cow's worth of trouble."

Buffy cocked an eyebrow at the dark slayer who replied with a "who me?" look. "That much, huh?" She gave a theatrical sigh. "Well, I guess Xander's right. We surely can't let _that_ go unsupervised."

Giles, seeing the direction this was going, made it to the door with the hurried admonition that they be safe, just before Buffy, Dawn, and Willow went scrambling up the stairs to get ready.

* * *

"Thanks for this, by the way." Buffy nudged her sister's shoulder as they walked into the doors of the familiar club.

"I'm sure I don't know what you're talking about." Dawn gave her a Mona-Lisa smile. "I just wanted to get out of the house, and suddenly you guys think I need six chaperones." She glanced down at the thin black sweater Buffy had slipped on, the tight black skirt, the heels. "Chaperones who apparently think they'll be doing some dancing of their own. So, on second thought, you're welcome…my reputation at school will likely never recover."

Faith, too, was looking at the blonde, knowing there had been some disappointment over a strappy dress Buffy had wanted to wear. Even with the sweater, the bandage was still visible around the blonde slayer's injury. Faith watched that sweater slide down on one side to reveal the sweep of a shoulder blade. She could follow the bra strap down to the filigree of its lacy cup. Follow the lean line of her torso down to those hips, to where the skirt came to its stopping-place mid-thigh. "Oh, I dunno, D. Think between B and me, we can manage some decent moves. We'll leave the embarrassing shit to Xander."

"Hey!" There was a half-hearted protest. "I don't think you're fully appreciating how fancy my footwork can be."

Anya nodded solemnly. "He's telling the truth. Our song of secrets involved softshoe."

Faith held her hands up in surrender. "Right. You've got me. I'll leave the floor to Riverdance over here while I get us some drinks."

"Irish folk isn't really the same as—" But Anya's comment only caught the back of Faith, disappearing into the crowd.

By the time she came back, clutching several beers by the neck in each hand, Dawn had already found some friends. Buffy was watching her sister laugh with them, smiling herself, before she turned to smile at the returning slayer. Her eyes swept over the wine-colored halter, down to the tight brown leather, slung low on those hips. She grinned, realizing Faith had caught her looking, and was exaggerating the roll of those hips for her benefit. Not that she was complaining.

"Well, Faith, I think you've succeeded in making just about every guy here melt into a puddle of hormonal goo." Xander took a beer from the dark slayer's outstretched hand. He nodded back towards the dance floor she'd just skirted. Everyone turned to look and saw curious eyes watching those same rolling hips. Even Dawn's group of friends was interested, leaving the younger Summers swelling a little with the pride of knowing the object of their attention.

"It's not just the guys."

Xander's head snapped back around to his wife.

Anya just shrugged. "I'm just saying that, if I wasn't so attached to your penis, I would be inclined. I do like brunettes."

Faith gave her a sly grin. "Don't think you'd be missin' cock by the time I got done…."

Her husband's mouth fell open and Willow had to reach over and shut it for him. "I think you girls may have broken him."

The blonde slayer stuck her lower lip out. "Okay, how come everyone's all oogl-y over my girlfriend?" Faith's eyes widened with that one, darting around to see if any of the gang were going to balk at the word. No one batted an eye. Buffy took two beers out of the blinking brunette's hands, passing them across to Willow and Tara. On the way back, she let her hand rest on the back of Faith's thigh as the dark slayer stood next to her.

Xander regained his power of speech. "Aw, don't be jealous, Buff—"

Buffy's brow furrowed. "Hey, I'm not—!"

Faith chimed in, winking. "Yeah, B, if it makes ya feel better, I saw Red checking you out earlier."

The redhead flushed, looking rapidly between an amused Tara and a blinking Buffy. "I was _not_! There was lint, and you know how that stuff shows up on black! What sort of friend would I be if I didn't get off the lint?"

"Lint on her ass?" The dark slayer wasn't going to let her off that easy.

Tara chuckled at Willow's answering squeak and pulled her girlfriend up to drag her out to the dance floor.

The table watched them go as Faith snagged Willow's former seat next to Buffy, turning to face her, placing one booted leg on either side of those crossed, bare ones. The dark slayer slid a beer over to the blonde, but kept her hand on it.

"Now, you sure you can handle this shit, B?"

"Beware the caveman's beetle-brow." Xander put up a warning finger. "Oh, and last time didn't it make you sabotage our glorious pool domination at the bachelor's party?" He folded his hands in front of him and looked over at Buffy, as though he were staging an intervention. "I just don't know who you are when you drink, Buff."

The blonde scowled at the table's mockery, grabbing the beer out of the other slayer's hand and taking a long, pointed swig. As she was doing so, Faith leaned over conspiratorially to Xander and Anya.

"Now, see, I was really just hopin' she'd take off her top like last time."

Buffy nearly choked on the beer. Anya leaned over to give her several robust slaps on the back.

Xander just stared. "There was undressing at my bachelor party? I missed that? I can't believe I missed that!"

Anya smacked him on the back of his head.

"Hey! I wasn't married yet!"

"Well, you are now, which entitles me to the sole position on your dance card." And then she promptly dragged him out of his chair and on to the floor.

Which left the two slayers together at the table, watching their friends dance away their troubles. Buffy could feel the smile on her face.

"This is good, right?"

The blonde looked over to meet Faith's eyes, then slid down to the bandage that the dark slayer—unlike herself—hadn't bothered to conceal. That tendency between the two of them to focus on wounds. Faith found a familiar way to deflect.

"We'll just tell anybody who asks that you got carried away with the whole hickey thing." That got the blonde's eyes back up to her own. "Good thing I don't have some kinda professional job…I'd have to wear fuckin' turtlenecks for weeks."

Buffy trailed a finger along the other girl's leather clad thigh, idly tracing the seam. "A turtleneck would be a real shame." Her eyes were following the sweep of Faith's neck down to that plunging neckline.

"Wouldn't it, though." Amused by the blonde's appreciative eyes. "If your done with the girls," Buffy looked back up at her through her eyelashes, not apologizing. "think maybe we're missin' out on this whole dancin' thing."

And, as Faith extended a hand, Buffy took it, and they joined the loose circle of their friends already on the floor.

* * *

As the night wore on, the beats became louder, more insistent. The pairs all drew closer. Even Dawn had found a beau to dance with. Under Buffy's watchful eye, he kept his hands respectful.

She was less worried about that with Faith. As in not at all.

The pulsing music found their hands locked above them as they threw their heads back, losing the room to enjoy each other instead. Faith danced close, thrusting a thigh in between Buffy's legs, feeling them spread to make room, that already small skirt riding up. One hand found that newly exposed skin. Buffy's own hand skated down Faith's body to cup her ass, grinding herself harder against Faith. She felt the brunette groan at the ceiling and leaned in to kiss along Faith's jawbone, down the neck offered up, along the artery thrumming just below the surface there. Her fangs extended slightly at the thought. Faith's hands fingered the edge of Buffy's sweater and inched underneath.

The blonde's mouth was against Faith's ear. "I think…home…better…god!" One hot fingertip had found the space in between her sucked-in stomach and the band of her skirt.

Buffy grabbed that hand and held it as she leaned over to Dawn, who stuck her fingers in her ears and made a face, but good-naturedly shooed her on. Dawn motioned that she would stay with Willow and Tara, who, if their closeness was any indication, would not be staying much longer themselves.

Buffy mouthed a "thank you" and "be safe," and then the slayers were free to stumble home, tripping over each other as their hands held them up, together. Buffy's back banged into the front door as Faith pressed her against it with her kiss, then reached around the elder slayer's hip to work the lock. Once in, they made their way to the stairs and down.

The black sweater found itself flung into a far corner. Buffy held Faith against her skin, biting her lip at the other girl's heat. She backed into one of the basement supports, grabbing Faith tighter, their mouths now locked. She whispered Faith's name over and over around their kisses until the dark slayer's eyes closed so she could just hear it.

Faith could only gasp in reply: "Fuck, yes…god, B…love…."

Faith's hands reached down on either side of Buffy's thighs, running fingernails up them, then pulling those legs up to straddle her waist, pinning Buffy to the pole, that skirt now riding all the way up, revealing the black lace of her panties, the sweet pale skin of those inner thighs. Faith glanced up at the half-lidded eyes watching her.

The eyes that closed as Buffy rested her forehead against Faith's, threading her fingers through that dark mane to hold Faith's head to hers. "…love you…."

And then a chain clinked.

Faith felt Buffy drop off of her and come down into a fighting stance. Faith was at her side, a dark mirror.

In the far corner, the demon was still there. In chains now that Willow's binding spell had worn off, but still there.

"Oh, for crying out loud!" Buffy stalked over to it, regarded for a moment this thing that had caused her so much pain. Had nearly caused so many others pain. She reached up and snapped its neck.

It crumpled to the floor and she turned back, seeing Faith's slayer relax a little with the threat removed, anxious to get back to that other need it had. Buffy held those brown eyes, slowly removing one shoe and then the other. Unzipping the back of the skirt, hooking her thumbs in the waist band and tugging it down. Stepping out of it. Walking towards Faith in that black lingerie.

Everything in Faith's head buzzed. That there would be time to appreciate this! That this woman wanted her! Loved her! She'd said it! She allowed the elder slayer to back her to the bed, to press her down into the mattress.

"Too many clothes."

Faith grinned at the blonde's pout, moving slowly to pull the top over her head, only to find Buffy's mouth on the skin of her stomach as soon as the shirt was gone, kissing up, tugging at the bra with her teeth. Faith obliged and that was gone, too. It did not take Buffy's mouth long to find those breasts either, sucking at one nipple as she rolled the other between her fingers, tweaking it as Faith arched into her touch.

Faith was sure there were cries and gasps and groans. Who could tell whose. Both of them. Her head might have exploded. In a flash, she had Buffy underneath her, leaving her for just long enough to strip off the leather and her own panties, before climbing on top again, covering that slim body with her own, pushing a hand underneath Buffy's bra to cup the breast there, before the lace was ripped aside and she was raking her teeth across the nipple.

Pretty sure that was Buffy's cry this time, as the blonde held Faith's head to her breast and the dark slayer nipped along the curve of it. Faith's tongue trailed down to swirl in Buffy's belly button as her fingers played along the lace of those panties, drawing a line. Buffy's hips writhed under her, begging, and she tasted the outside of that nylon, already wet.

"Faith!" The blonde's hands were still in her hair. "Want to…my mouth…on you." Buffy could hardly form words, a part of her brain that wasn't working anymore with all the fireworks elsewhere.

Faith pushed the thin material aside and dipped her tongue in and Buffy jumped at the feel of it.

"Faith! I need…!" Buffy's hands tugging at the other slayer, until she was rewarded as Faith turned, still keeping her tongue in Buffy's slit, settling her chest over the other girl's stomach.

Even knowing what was coming, Faith nearly collapsed at the feel of the other girl's hungry mouth finding her, tasting quickly before leaving for a moment to dip teeth into the skin of her inner thigh. The sucking there, as Buffy's fingers kept Faith shivering with need, curling deep inside her, in and out.

And then Buffy's mouth back where it started, leaving Faith to gasp at the pull in a different place. Both girls' mouths were desperate, whimpering, clutching at the taste of the other, the tremors they could each feel their mouths causing, circling the sensitive nubs with their tongues, then taking them between their lips, sucking. Faith felt Buffy's hips buck up to meet her mouth, and felt Buffy's firm grip clamping Faith's own hips down over her mouth. Crying out into each other, eyes squeezed shut because it was lights and rushing blood and the pin-prick of sensation until it all became too much and sent both of them, shuddering, over the edge together.


	50. Chapter 50

A/N: Hey, it's like a bicentennial for this story! Who'd a thought we'd still be going with season six? Enjoy! Love to hear your thoughts!

* * *

The night had hit that coolest, darkest point of early morning when the two slayers crept upstairs. Buffy stopped in front of Dawn's bedroom. The dark slayer bumped into her back, and Buffy threw her hands out to catch the doorframe and keep herself from falling into the door. She heard Faith snickering behind her, and gave her a mock glare, placing a finger against her lips as her hand found the knob and turned.

Dawn was revealed, home and asleep in her bed. Buffy could click the door shut again.

Then turn to Faith, whose hands were already starting to roam under the t-shirt the blonde slayer had thrown on as some small concession to modesty. Seeing Buffy's amused eyebrow, Faith opted for a "what can a girl do" shrug, jerking her thumb towards the next bedroom door down. Both slayers turned to hear the small, gasping cries, the whisper of shifting sheets coming from inside that room.

Faith was snickering again, and Buffy couldn't help but giggle, too. The two of them hurried down the hall to the shower, closing the door behind them, then breaking out into more giggles. The elder slayer pulled her t-shirt over her head. Faith helped, or hindered, depending on what was the object of that undressing.

Buffy tried to adopt a serious expression. "You know, Faith, someone could have been awake up here and seen you strutting around all clothes-free."

The dark slayer grinned, leaving the admiration of her already-naked body to Buffy. The blonde was showing herself quite capable of that appreciation. "Think two somebodies _are_ awake out there."

The blonde ran a finger along one of Faith's hip bones, then traced a line over to its counterpart on the other side. "Lucky for you, Will and Tara were kinda otherwise occupied and not interested in coming out to see your bare ass winking down the hallway."

Faith smiled, content to watch the slow progress of Buffy's touch. "Their loss, then." She caught the blonde slayer's eyebrow. "Hey, you knew from the get-go I wasn't gonna be all Polly Prude."

Buffy pouted, trailing her fingers around the curve of each breast to the nipple, feeling Faith reach to rub a thumb across her own. "But I wanna be the only one that gets to see the good parts."

"Hate to break it to ya, B, but there've been a lotta eyes on these parts." Faith looked away, moving over to turn on the shower, putting on a studied exhibition of those parts.

The blonde's face scrunched into a scowl. "Okay, first rule of relationships is no talking about previous relationships—" She saw Faith opening her mouth and rushed on. "Second rule applies to sexual encounters, but is otherwise the same as the first rule."

Faith raised an eyebrow, but kept her gaze on the stream of water, testing it with her fingers. "Also remember tellin' ya that I wasn't gonna be any fuckin' good at this relationship shit either."

Buffy moved closer, naked now, stepping under the spray. She took the brunette by the hand and coaxed her in. "Which is why I'm trying to help you. See, there's a leaf, and here's me turning it over."

"So you're the relationship expert, huh?" The two slayers looked at each other for a moment, until Faith chuckled. "Yeah, we're pretty much fucked."

The blonde pursed her lips, considering, as one hand idly soaped up the other girl's lean stomach, reaching around her back, down across the tight swell of her ass. "Well, I'll admit that neither one of us has a great track record." Faith snorted, and Buffy gave her a look to say she wasn't done. "But I'm prepared to fight off all comers—" A snicker this time from the dark slayer, and Buffy realized what she'd said. "Okay, not exactly what I meant. I am a welcomer of some comers—namely, you—" Her tongue flicked out to lick Faith's nipple. "—but everybody else better watch out because, now that I've found you, I'm going to fight to keep you with me."

Faith watched her for a moment, those brown eyes serious even as a smile played at her lips. Then she moved around Buffy to stand under the water, tipping her head back to rinse out the shampoo, shutting her eyes even as she felt the elder slayer's eyes on her. "You're that fierce, huh?"

Buffy watched the water slide down, pushing little pockets of suds ahead of it. Across those shoulders, down and around her breasts, straight down to that tempting sex. She felt her own muscles clench. "Like a tiger."

"Oh, I see. Remind me to tell everybody to watch out, then, 'cause we got ourselves some kinda dangerous—" And then Faith lost the power of speech, blinking her eyes open wide as she felt the blonde slayer's tongue slip inside her, realizing that Buffy had moved to kneel in front of her and had one hand gripping each tense hamstring. Looking down, she saw that pink tongue dipping in to taste and the sight of it—just that—was almost enough to make her gasp into a climax right there.

And then there was the blonde slayer herself. The pale sweep of her back ending in that sweet curve. The sight of her breasts, bouncing slightly as her tongue quickened its pace.

"Oh, fuck, yes…." One hand reached up to grasp the top of the shower door, while the other fumbled for purchase against the wet shower wall. Her vision was narrowing, and she wasn't sure if it was the steam or the vivid touch below. Her knees quivered, on the verge of crumpling. "God, B…gonna fall…."

Instantly, strong arms clasped around her hips, fingers splaying across her back in support, and Buffy held her there and held her up as she made love to her.

* * *

Buffy woke up as soft cloth landed on her face. "Hey!" She picked the material off of her and saw Faith next to her, doing the same. They were naked and tangled in bed. And now strewn with hospital scrub pants and t-shirts.

"Giles says it's time to get decent." Dawn had her hand on her hips, standing in the basement doorway. "And why is it that every time I open this door these days, you're naked? It's very disconcerting."

The blonde slayer frowned up at her sister. "Don't wanna get up." She groaned in protest, glancing over to see Faith indulging in a luxurious stretch that showed off all those muscles—all that skin—she'd so recently been enjoying. Her groan rumbled down in her throat, and she swept her fingers across that lean torso. Faith purred at the touch.

Dawn rolled her eyes. "Well, stay naked if you want, but everybody's going to be coming down there in just a few minutes, and I'll let you explain your decision to turn this place into a nudist colony."

"Don't give Faith any ideas." Buffy grumbled, yanking the t-shirt over her head. Dawn's head disappeared around the corner of the door. The elder slayer pushed the sheets off of her and padded naked to the dresser, groping around for underwear and a sports bra. She turned to look back at the bed as Faith tipped her hips towards the ceiling, pulling the scrubs up over them.

Buffy groaned. "Now, see, Giles is going to want me to be attention girl and I'm just going to be thinking about how you're all commando under there."

The dark slayer gave her a sly grin. "Well, we could just tell Giles to go—"

"Wherever it is that you would have me go, Faith, I'm not going." The watcher's voice filtered down from the head of the stairs. Both slayers looked up to see that the Englishman had prudently sent Tara in ahead of him to make sure he could safely enter. The blonde witch took in the slayers' relative state of dress and turned back to nod at him. "I've got some training exercises to work out any stiffness left over from both of your wounds, and then there's the research on these three boys you went to school with, Buffy, who are apparently able to summon demons capable of posing a serious threat…."

"Oh, eww…it's still here!" Dawn scrunched her face as she followed Giles down the stairs. "And you get on me for not cleaning my room!?"

Everyone turned to look. Willow had just made it through the doorway. "What's still here?"

Anya answered, wrinkling her nose. "The crazy-making demon that poked Buffy." She made a jabbing motion with her finger and Buffy recoiled a little.

The redhead hurried down the steps. "Goddess, did it get loose?"

"Since it's dead and still chained, I'm gonna go with a no on that." Xander's gaze shifted between Willow and Buffy, who was still standing at the edge of the bed, looking sheepish. "Did you, um…?"

"Kill it?" Faith supplied.

"Yeah." Xander nodded his thanks and Buffy nodded her answer.

"You killed it and then just left it there?" Dawn threw her hands up.

Buffy attempted some defense. "Well, I just sort of forgot about it and then—"

It hit her sister. "Ohmygod, you've been having sex with Faith down here while that thing's been dead in the corner!"

The blonde slayer frowned. "I _said_ I forgot it was there, Dawn."

"How could you just—?"

"Well, it's true that it wouldn't have been making any noise."

Xander looked over at his wife. "Yeah, An, I think that was covered by the whole 'dead' thing."

Giles cleared his throat. "Well, at any rate, perhaps we could conduct a removal operation now so that we could get on to more productive business down here."

Given that it was daylight, Faith suddenly found everyone looking at her. "Fine, whatever." She pointed to Xander. "But you're helpin'. And somebody else better be scoutin' some route to a sewer that won't have the Joneses next door callin' the cops." She gave the demon a good kick to make sure it was well and truly dead before she leaned down to pick it up, grumbling. "Why can't these things just fuckin' dust already?"

Buffy watched it go, until Anya stepped in front of her, waving several videos. The blonde slayer's attention snapped back to the present, confused.

"But I thought—"

Anya shrugged. "Xander figured that it wouldn't take long before everyone got tired of the Giles Fun Fest…hence movies."

Willow ignored Giles' "Hey!" and looked over Anya's shoulder, scanning the titles. "Ooh, _Sixteen Candles_, _The Breakfast Club_, and…um, _Daughters of Darkness_? Wait, I don't think I know that last one." She plucked it out of the ex-vengeance demon's hand.

"Lesbian vampire flick." Anya supplied, adding the obvious. "Xander picked it."

The redhead's brow furrowed. She looked over at Tara, then glanced at Buffy, then quickly back at Tara. "They make movies about…?"

"It's a sub-genre." Anya shrugged.

Buffy's eyes were wide, taking in the cover over Willow's shoulder. "I had no idea I was niche."

"Niche or not, there is the matter of first dealing with the threats at our doorstep." Everyone turned back to Giles. Willow reluctantly set the movies down.

Xander and Faith appeared in the doorway, the dark slayer announcing their arrival. "One dead demon down the sewer. Hey, how many you suppose are—"

"Ah, Faith. We were just getting back to business."

Xander looked over at Faith. "Told you we shoulda stopped for a beer." Faith looked as though she agreed and slouched down the stairs to sit next to Buffy on the bed.

"So what we know is that the three young men appear to have abandoned their earlier hideout. And, Faith, correct me if I'm wrong, but you said that you and Buffy encountered them in the van right before the demon attacked you."

Faith was watching Dawn as she pulled the blonde slayer's t-shirt off to redo the bandage on her shoulder. The wound itself was healing: the miracle of slayer powers. Buffy rotated her shoulder, testing its range of movement, wincing a little, but motioning for her sister to re-bandage it tighter. Faith realized Giles was waiting for her to go on. "Um…yeah. Black van. We could hear the fuckers inside, but before we could get in to them, the demon was there." She watched Dawn wrap the gauze around and around. "Oh, and that guy was there afterwards, when I was…." She turned back to face him, trying not to see the image of Buffy sliding down before she could catch her. "…when I was pickin' B up."

"What guy?" Giles asked the question, but, out of the corner of her eye, Faith could see the blonde staring at her, unaware that her fangs had extended slightly.

"The main guy. The one I almost slit his throat."

"Warren." It came out as a growl from her lover. Faith turned to her, feeling the slayer's hand gripping her thigh.

Xander jumped in. "Right, so Warren and his pals are livin' in a van down by the river—"

Giles blinked several times. "There's a river in Sunnydale? How was I unaware of—"

Xander held his hands up. "Bad joke. Sorry. Point being, how are we ever going to find them? They could be anywhere."

"Yes, Willow, perhaps you could do some sort of computer search…?" The Englishman's question hung, and the redhead jumped on it, looking away from where her girlfriend was removing the bandaging on Faith's neck.

"Right. I could look for maybe where the van is registered or any recent parking tickets or…." Her mind raced ahead of itself. She hurried over to the computer and Dawn followed.

"An and I can see if we can find anything out about the sort of magic needed to summon one of those demon things. You know, see what we're dealing with here." He walked over to pick up a book, dragging along his wife, who grumbled that they always got stuck with the old books.

Buffy's eyes were trained on that revealed wound, the one she only half-remembered making. Which made it both better and worse.

Tara's fingers brushed next to the healing, puckered skin. "I don't know, Faith. You may have a mark."

"She will." Buffy touched the faint reminder on her own neck.

Faith turned to see those green eyes on her. Even though a part of her bristled at the implication, she couldn't help but shiver at the blonde's look. "You leavin' your mark, huh, B? Who'd a thought you'd be so territorial?" Glancing at the mark Angel had left, Faith felt her own sting of possessiveness. "We'll see how long it lasts." Buffy scowled and looked away.

Xander relished the distraction from his book. "Is a bite mark more or less romantic than a u-haul?" Anya stared at him. "What? Will keeps me up with the gay."

Willow rolled her eyes. "Xander, they kind of already live together." She reached out to touch the arm of Tara, who was just coming to join her at the computer.

"Oh, right. Not a time-waster, our Buff."

"Ahem." By this time, Giles had his hands on his hips.

* * *

The afternoon drew late with little progress in the research. Giles had spared all of them the annoyance of restless slayers by setting Faith and Buffy to spar, a task they threw themselves into with perhaps more bodily contact than usual.

"So what's the plan tonight, G-man? Which graveyard we up for?" Faith tossed the words over her shoulder to the watcher with a clipboard taking notes.

He rubbed his hand across his eyes for a moment, then looked back up at the two slayers with the sheen of sweat still on them, the light of a fight in their eyes. "I think it would be best to take another day. Both of you suffered serious injuries which, while healing, wouldn't be hurt by a little more time—" He held up a hand to cut off Faith's protest. "And we still haven't come up with a location for Warren and his compatriots."

Buffy felt her slayer's disappointment and felt the vampire in her stirring at the coming sundown. But Buffy herself looked over at the girl next to her, twirling her staff back and forth, those scrub pants riding low on her hips. There were certainly worse things than the prospect of a night in. She turned to Giles in exaggerated resignation. "Well, if that's the way you're gonna be, Giles, who am I to challenge? I mean, you _are_ the watcher and I'm _just_ the slayer." She made every effort to look the petite California blonde she appeared to be. Faith watched her, amused.

Giles started to puff his chest out a little before he realized the blonde was going somewhere with this. He sank back down, sighing. "Alright, we can call it a day and you can watch your movies."

Before the words were even out, there was a general "hurrah!" and scrambling of people to go find chairs and cushions and movement to bring the television downstairs to hook it up. After which they all settled in, Buffy curling next to Faith on the bed, only interrupting the gathering to send Xander to the grocery store for provisions after the first movie's end.

* * *

"Buffy, we've got a problem."

The blonde slayer lifted her head off of Faith's shoulder as Xander came down the basement stairs. One side of his cheekbone had the purplish sheen of a bruise. Buffy sprang off the bed.

"Xander! What happened?"

Anya caught sight of him. "It was just the supermarket! What on earth could've—?"

Everyone crowded around, but Xander was talking to the slayers. "Warren."

Buffy's jaw tightened. "Where?"

"At the grocery—?"

Faith spoke for everyone. "What the fuck was he doin' there?"

Xander winced, holding on to his shoulder. "They were all there. Warren was trying to put the moves on a girl in produce, I think."

"Oh, this is just about the lamest—" Buffy fumed, reaching out to help Xander over to sit down. "Didn't someone tell them that whole thing about meeting women in the grocery store is just not true?"

"Actually…."

Buffy turned to look at Faith for a moment, blinking, then turned back to Xander. "Putting aside the fact that I've clearly been shopping at the wrong supermarkets, what happened and how did that end up with your face looking like an eggplant?"

"Well, he wasn't just asking the proper way to pick out a cantaloupe." He flinched as Anya pressed an ice pack to his face. "He beat up the girl's boyfriend." Seeing all of their puzzled faces, he went on. "I know, I know, but I saw it! And then he starts harassing her and she's scared, so I stepped in and next thing I know, I'm flying back into the pyramid of Washington apples."

"My Xander, the hero." Anya daubed at his face.

"I don't understand." Buffy was still shaking her head. "He just punched you, right?"

"Yes, but, in my defense, that was not a normal punch! He's got some sort of super-strength mojo going on because there's no way he could—" He could see Faith's skepticism. "Look, the girl's boyfriend was a lot bigger than me, and Warren was throwing him around in just the same way."

"So you went back into the apples, and…?"

"Well, Warren looked like he was going to try to force the girl to come with him. He kept saying all this stuff about how he could treat her right and she looked afraid, so I tried my patented bull rush maneuver." Now it was his turn to shake his head. "Buff, it was like slamming into a rock. The guy didn't move. Which is precisely when I became the clean-up on aisle five."

"Thank goodness you were able to get away!" Anya threw her arms around him and held on.

Her husband sighed. "Well, maybe not so much me get away as they decided they would go try their tricks elsewhere. Anyway, they left me there. And Warren said something on his way out—I didn't really get it, but, something for you, Buffy, about how, if you're not planning a second night of Slayer 69, then you should just try and stop him."

Buffy and Faith's mouths both fell open. Willow's wasn't far behind.

The dark slayer spoke first, her "How the fuck did he...?" only a split second faster than Buffy's "Are you sure he said '69'?"

Xander closed his eyes, straining to remember. "Yeah, it was definitely that, but I didn't really get…." He trailed off, the light dawning. "Okay, now I get it. And my head has officially exploded." Another light, catching up to where the slayers already were. "Wait, last night you were here, so how would he…?"

Faith was already scrambling around, throwing the bedcovers aside, looking under them.

Willow was stuck a few steps back, looking at Buffy, who was staring around at the room, confused. "You just started with the girl loving! That's like at least level five!"

Anya placed a hand on the redhead's arm. "I think being a slayer gives her a head start."

But Buffy wasn't listening. "Guys, there's got to be some sort of camera." Then she pulled up short, feeling herself go even paler. "Oh, god! That means they've been watching me. That is so—!" Words failed her. They had taken the previous night and twisted it. Perverted it. Her stomach turned over.

Several feet away, Faith's lip curled, and the sheet she was holding balled up in her fist. "They always wanna fuckin' watch."

"It's even worse than you think." Xander was looking at Buffy, wishing he didn't have to say anything.

Buffy turned to him, her face falling as she saw the stuffed pig he held up in one hand. Turned over, the slit in its belly was easy to see. Xander stuck a hand in and pulled out the camera equipment, along with stuffing. Buffy's hand flew to her mouth and a strangled noise came from her throat.

Willow said it for her. "Mr. Gordo!"

Faith's head swiveled between the gutted pig and the horrified blonde, watching the sequence of expressions flicker quickly across the latter's face. Faith turned to Xander. "You said this Warren guy's workin' some kinda superpower thing now, right?"

Xander nodded, placing the stuffed pig carefully back on its feet, hiding the gruesome cut underneath. But Mr. Gordo couldn't stand the same without all that stuffing inside and rolled over anyway, gutted.

Buffy's expression resolved itself into anger as she bared her teeth. "Good. That means I don't have to hold back."


	51. Chapter 51

A/N: Sorry this is a little late...I was having difficulty logging in here. Hope it doesn't disappoint!

* * *

"So, if I was a peeping, pig-slaughtering, dead-man-walking, where would I be?"

Faith glanced over at the blonde slayer. Her own boots crunched in the gutter's gravel. The leather creaked, moving with her, a tight armor of black. Underneath the jacket, underneath the white tank that flashed its little glimmer of light, her heart beat fast. Excited.

Buffy could hear it.

The blonde's boots matched the other slayer, step for step. Black. Pointed toe peeking out under her jeans. Black elsewhere, too. Black cowl-neck sweater. Black knee-length coat fluttering a little behind her as she walked. The glower on her face only lighter by virtue of her pale skin, the golden framing. A few tendrils caught in the night's breeze and blew wild.

They both had weapons. The stakes of their trade. Faith had her knife, too, tucked into the sheath in her boot. Buffy's teeth were just visible through parted lips. She was not of a mind to conceal them.

Faith was considering. "I'm thinkin' Bronze." Buffy looked over at her and the dark slayer shrugged. "I wanted to be somebody's daddy, s'where I'd go."

"You've clearly put far more thought into this than I have." Buffy still stared, then joined her counterpart's shrug. "Putting aside the gender and incest issues for a moment, I guess it's as good a place as any."

Faith tipped up one corner of her mouth. "We guess wrong and there's still dancing."

Buffy's nose crinkled. "Right. So they can get off on watching that, too? God, the whole thing just icks me!"

"Somebody's always about catching the show." Faith watched the breeze move the tops of the palms. A stiffer wind and some of those big fronds would come right down, catch on the undercarriage of low-slung cars. She sensed Buffy had stopped in front of her.

"Faith, I love you."

At the blonde slayer's words, Faith's eyes came back down from the far away where they'd been. It was the first time the words had been said when one of them wasn't about to die or in the middle of some big calamity or some other time when people say words like that. Buffy kept talking so they could get past the moment, so it would be there behind them and they wouldn't have to think, next time, about it being the first time.

"Look, I know I don't know everything about everyone you've ever been with—and I don't want to know, because, hey, insecurity and awkwardness and possibly jealous rage—but I know I didn't do any of _this_ for show." She caught the depths of those brown eyes and held them, then grinned. "I mean, for one, it was too much trouble to do for anyone else."

Faith matched her grin, reaching two hands inside Buffy's coat, grabbing just above the blonde's hipbones. "Yeah, I'm sure it had to be hard pullin' that big stick outta your ass."

Buffy just rolled her eyes. "Yeah, that was the hard part, all right." She leaned in to the other girl's heat, letting her lips find Faith's. Then she pulled back, a raised eyebrow questioning. "You know I'm still what some might describe as slightly tightly-wound."

"Slightly." Faith couldn't keep the smirk from her lips on that one as they started walking again.

"Slightly."

"Kinda takin' the bad with the good."

"Hey!" Buffy swatted Faith's ass and looked as though she had more to say on the subject, but the two girls found themselves at the door to the Bronze.

"Gonna have to save the S & M for later, B. Duty calls." Faith gave the bouncer an exaggerated "what can you do with 'em?" shrug.

"Oh, don't go trying to drag me into your spanking fantasies—!" Buffy stopped as she saw the bouncer giving her the once over. "What are you looking at? Hello, private conversation." There was just enough teeth behind it to make his eyes flicker quickly away. She scowled and followed Faith in, her scowl only deepening as she remembered who they were there for and why.

It was not hard to spot the trio in their matching black leather jackets over near the bar. Warren was trying to force a drink on a beleaguered looking girl who was clearly looking for a way to say "no" that wouldn't be turned into "yes," as all her previous "no's" had been. Ten feet away, a brawny young man was watching the two of them, rubbing at the bruise on his jaw.

"Okay, just for the record, wearing leather doesn't make you a badass. It's _how_ you wear it." Faith had her arms crossed over her chest. Jonathan and Andrew spotted her, looked down at their jackets, and then tugged at Warren.

You know, Sparky, I'm kinda in the middle of—" Warren caught sight of the slayers. "Hey, I was wondering when you two clam lickers would decide to show up."

Jonathan and Andrew snickered. Buffy looked over at them, raising an eyebrow that shut them up, then back at Warren.

"Okay, first off, clam lickers? We come all the way over here and that's what you've got? Seriously?" The blonde looked over at her lover. "Faith, I'm gonna need a second opinion on this."

The dark slayer pursed her lips, pretending to consider for a moment. "Well, B…it's seafood. And you know I like seafood."

"Mmm-hmm." Buffy opened her mouth slightly, offering a glimpse of the sharp tips of her fangs. "See food."

Faith snorted, catching the wide-eyed stares of the boys next to her. "Watch out for her. She thinks she's wicked funny."

"Oh, that's right." Warren smacked his hand on his head as if he were just remembering. "You're doing that whole vampire thing these days. I remember you taking a nip in the middle of your Slayer Slut Fest last night." He didn't seem phased by Buffy's glare. "Not really gonna help you, though, sweetie."

"And then we come to point number two: don't call me 'sweetie.' Because, you know, the whole 'sweetie,' 'daddy' thing, it's not attractive, or even particularly menacing. Pretty much just creepy." Buffy glanced over at the frightened girl still next to Warren, sliding down to see Warren's hand tight on the girl's wrist. Buffy's eyes narrowed. "So this is your master plan, huh? Beat up on my friends in the produce department, terrorize women who would never in a million years give you a second look?"

From behind her, Faith chimed in. "Said it before, B. Quality of your average Sunny-D badness is just slippin'."

Andrew piped up, indignant. "There's more to it than that! We have a scheme!"

Buffy looked at him, then back at Warren. "Right, how could I forget? You guys are also the Kingpins of Peeping." She stepped closer to him. Warren almost took a step back, but then caught himself and stayed where he was with a grin still firmly in place. Buffy spoke through gritted teeth, her slayer chafing at the challenge. "Rule number one: Don't. Mess. With. My. Pig." Each word punctuated with a punch.

Warren took them all, unmoving, then wiped at the edge of his mouth where one had split his lip. "Are you all done?"

Buffy's brow furrowed, looking between Warren, still standing there, and her knuckles. When she looked back up, his fist was coming right at her face.

She staggered back, catching the brunt of it right in her jaw.

"Yes!" Andrew's hiss of victory was accompanied by a fist pump that quickly turned into a hand rubbing the back of his head as Faith smacked him there. "Ow!"

Faith, rolling her eyes: "Oh, shut the fuck up." She turned back to the fight in front of her, the one she was trying to stay out of to give Buffy her chance to avenge Mr. Gordo.

It had begun in earnest, the blows and the crashing of furniture earning them a clear space among the bar's patrons. There were several shouts of "fight, fight!" because someone always did that. Faith spotted the bouncer out of the corner of her eye and moved to intercept. But then she saw him hesitate when he spotted the diminutive blonde. He was remembering those teeth. The dark slayer smirked at his unexpected smarts.

In front of them, Buffy's fist snapped Warren's head back and made him stumble a step or two. But it didn't send him crashing into the bar behind him, as it should have. The blonde slayer redoubled her attack, a graceful sequence of punches and kicks, the flow from blow to blow, the muscle memory of fight-to-win, pushing Warren back.

Until his punch found the gut she'd left open.

It slammed into the lower ribs on her right side. She was faster than him, but every hit he landed was like a cudgel of rock. She didn't need the breath it blew out of her, but she felt the cracks there all the same.

She doubled over with it, and then sprang back up with a kick that caught Warren in the breast bone. She could feel the impact shudder through her leg, then Warren's punch coming across to find the space behind her knee. The blow forced the bend and crumpled her to the floor. She felt the tendons stretch. She might have cried out.

Faith was there next to her, picking her up.

"Sorry, B, I was tryin' to be all patient and shit. Turns out, not so good at it."

Buffy tried not to favor her leg as she stood, pasting a smile over the pain. "No worries. I was just about to invite you to the party, Faith. I'd hate to hoard the fun."

The dark slayer's grin widened. "Never one to turn down a pretty girl." And the grin was still there as she turned to Warren, cracking her knuckles. Only to find the bouncer attempting to wrap Warren in a bear hug.

He had decided Warren was an easier target than Buffy. Which turned out to be a bad idea. The bouncer, big as he was, went flying even further than the blonde slayer, crashing into the pool table, taking several other people with him.

Buffy grabbed Faith's arm, hissing. "We have to get him out of here!"

"Right-o!" And the dark slayer was in it with gusto, running over to swing around one of the Bronze's support beams and slam her foot right into the side of Warren's face where he stood, arms crossed and gloating.

Warren staggered a little, but quickly righted, the smug look still on his face. "What, is it already round two? I must've missed the girl with the number go by."

Off to his side, Andrew elbowed Jonathan, who slapped his hand away. "Oh, don't even think about it! I am _not_ doing the number thing!"

"We could ask Buffy. She'd be hot in a swimsuit." Andrew pushed him a little in the blonde's direction. "You ask her. You know her better."

Jonathan threw his hands up and planted his feet. "Me?!? I'm not gonna—!"

And then, as a growling Buffy rushed past them into the fight, it became apparent no one would be asking her anything.

With both slayers in it, Warren was kept busy, knocking down one punch even as another kick was flying at his head. Buffy and Faith landed blow after blow, working together, smiling, linking arms to support each other's kicks and combine the strength they could put behind them. But then grimly focused as Warren absorbed each hit that should have knocked him flat.

And yet every blow of his that made it through their defenses sent them reeling back. Faith's slayer thrilled at a combination that went just perfect, and then Warren took advantage of the opening left—the one that wasn't supposed to be a big deal because the opponent should have been flat on his ass across the room—and threw her like a rag doll into Buffy. They tumbled in a heap, then flipped up, a little slower than when they'd began.

Faith's lip curled. "So you think you're all big man now you've got some sorta superpowered mojo on. Too fuckin' pathetic to do it on your own."

Warren shrugged. "A winner's a winner. And there's gonna be nobody as big a winner in this town as me."

Buffy looked over at her sister slayer, holding up a slim pinky finger. "I dunno, Faith. I'm thinkin' he's compensating for something."

"Well, even with all that compensatin', he's still not wowin' the ladies." Faith hooked a thumb at the girl Warren had been accosting earlier, who was now on her way out the door. "Looks like she wasn't too impressed by your mini-me."

For the first time that evening, Warren looked ruffled. Jonathan and Andrew were snickering, watching him. Buffy saw Warren's face redden and touched Faith lightly on the arm, flicking her eyes towards the door.

Buffy turned to the dark slayer, pointedly abandoning her defensive posture, crossing her hands across her chest as though considering. "You know, I have to agree, Faith. I mean, if fancy car equals small penis, then what does it mean when you have to magic yourself into a superpower?"

Faith played along, pursing her own lips in exaggerated contemplation. "I'm thinking it means I got better things to do than be a part of his dick-enlargement project. Sorta a waste of my skills, if you get me." A couple of bar patrons were even laughing now. Warren glared at them, then back at the two girls debating his manhood.

The blonde nodded, matter-of-factly, and then looped her arm through Faith's turning towards the door. "Then, by all means, let's go put those skills to better use."

Andrew was sputtering. "Oh, Warren _so_ does not have a—!" He stopped as he saw Jonathan staring at him. "Well, anyway, they can't just leave! He's the bad guy!"

Warren was reduced to calling out to the slayer's backs as they sauntered towards the door. "So, what, a real man is too much for you?"

The two slayers, each a vision in their own right, turned to look back at him over their shoulders. Buffy looked at the red lips next to her, the swell of Faith's breasts, and tugged with one finger at the neck of Faith's tank. "Does it look like we need a man to you?" And with that, they were out the door.

* * *

"Everybody's got a weakness." Faith sniffed, looking around the alley outside. "You sure he's gonna follow, though?"

"Don't think he could show his face if he didn't." Buffy was also scanning their options. "So now we just need to figure out how to deal with Steroid Boy in there."

"I'm thinking we take out the trash."

Buffy's eyes followed Faith's and spotted the oversized dumpster. "Ooh…good call."

And so, when Warren rushed through the doorway a few moments later, flushed, he promptly found himself on the receiving end of a flying dumpster, disappearing under its bulk.

Jonathan and Andrew could only stare, open-mouthed. Until they noticed a Buffy stalking in their direction.

"Not so brave now without your fearless leader, huh?"

Andrew tried to puff out his chest. "He wasn't our leader. We are a triumvirate. A triumvirate of evil."

Faith was right behind Buffy, rolling her eyes, her arms crossed across her chest. "A triumvirate of somethin', alright."

The vampire already had her finger out, pointing it at Jonathan. "And, you! You, of all people! I kept you from committing suicide and this is the thanks I get?"

"But that wasn't—I wasn't going to really do it anyway!"

"Well, thanks for sharing that now, when you aren't up in a bell tower with a high-powered rifle." Buffy threw up her hands. "Oh, and the Class Protector thing! Am I supposed to be protecting everyone against the dastardly deeds of three misfits? 'Cause, you know, that sort of minimizes it!"

"I just—with Warren—we weren't gonna really hurt anyone. I mean we didn't mean to…." Jonathan fumbled through it, looking over to Andrew for confirmation.

The other boy was staring past the slayers. "Well, plans change."

And just as Buffy turned to look, the dumpster went rumbling across the ground like a child's toy, ramming into the dark slayer, sending her flying off to one side.

"Faith!" Buffy took one look at the slayer struggling to rise, and roared after Warren, who was dusting himself off.

"What part of invincible don't you people—?" He didn't have time to finish it before Buffy was slamming into him, fangs out and tearing at his neck. He grabbed her by the hair and flung her to one side, against the alley wall. "Not now, sweetheart." He started to move towards Faith, who was still on her knees, holding her ribs. Buffy rushed at him again, this time knocking him to the ground, pinning him. He wedged a foot up against Buffy's stomach and kicked out, sending her crashing back into a stack of crates. "For crying out loud, will somebody do something with this rabid dog!?"

Jonathan and Andrew stared at him blankly, clearly not moving towards the groaning blonde still sprawled among the boxes.

"Well, when you want something done right…." Warren shrugged, starting towards Buffy himself.

"Hey, numbnut!" Hearing the dark slayer behind him, Warren spun around to find her holding Jonathan and Andrew both by the throat. Both boys were making frantic choking gestures. "How's about you step away from B?"

Andrew managed to gasp out. "You can't take hostages! You're the good guys!"

Faith's lip curled. "Who says?"

Warren just chuckled. "You actually want me to believe you're going to hurt them? You? You freaked out when you thought you'd killed Katrina for crissakes!"

Faith jaw set at that. She opened her mouth, then shut it again.

"And anyway, kill them if you want. Doesn't matter to me." A wave of his hand. Two anguished cries came from either side of Faith. "I don't need them to take care of you two." He continued towards the crumpled slayer.

Behind him, Faith growled and dropped her captives, lunging out to catch him, only to have Jonathan launch himself on her back.

"Hey! What the fuck?!" She spun around and spun around and finally backed him into a pole. With a grunt he let go, flinching as she turned to put him out of this fight for good.

"The balls. In the pouch. Around his waist. You have to get rid of them." He hissed it out, just loud enough for her to hear. She stared at him for a split second, then nodded and punched him anyway, maybe a little less hard than she had intended. She had already turned before he fell to his knees, grabbing at his bleeding nose.

And as she turned, she saw Buffy, held up by the throat in front of Warren, The blonde was still shaking her head to clear it, her hands were coming out to catch at his jacket, the tips of her toes weren't quite touching the floor.

Squeezing his hand tighter, Warren was enjoying the wide open of her green eyes. Getting finally to use that growling voice he always imagined those villains used. "Say goodnight, bitch."

But from a distance. "Go for the balls, B!" Faith yelled it because words travel even faster than slayers.

Even as Warren swung around towards the dark slayer, open-mouthed, Buffy's knee—and all the demons behind it—rammed up in between his legs.

Warren's eyes crossed and rolled up into his head. But his grip didn't loosen. The blonde's eyes went wide and her hands asked the question, emphatically, of Faith. And then the dark slayer was there, grabbing the pouch at Warren's waist and flinging it down.

She grabbed Warren by the front of his shirt, bringing him close. "Goodnight, bitch." And ground the pouch under her heel. She wiped her hands of him as he slumped away. Faith caught Buffy as she fell from Warren's grip, wrapping her arm around the blonde's waist, treating her to a raised eyebrow and a grin. "Remind me not to piss you off, B."

Behind them: "You haven't won this one yet, slayers!"

The girls swung around only to see Warren activate the jet pack his jacket had hidden. And jet off into the sky.

"Oh, for fuck's sake!" Faith said it for both of them. "Who the hell has a fuckin' jet pack?"

Andrew ripped off his jacket. "I do!"

Jonathan spun around. "Hey! You do? Why don't I have one? You guys!"

Andrew jetted up a few feet, and then a sputtering, and he fell back down to the ground in an ungainly heap of metal and boy.

Jonathan reconsidered. "Okay, I didn't want one like that." And then he was running, joined by a stumbling Andrew, into the night.

"Ooh, I like it when they run!" Faith's eyes glittered for the chase.

But Buffy had to put her hand on Faith's arm. "The sun." She kissed the pout that pushed Faith's lip out. "Don't worry, they won't get away for long."


	52. Chapter 52

A/N: Got to credit Roger Ebert here for his review of _Daughters of Darkness_, which I (regretfully, apparently) have not seen. Really would love to hear what you think on this one (perhaps especially on this one)!

* * *

"And, lo, the triumphant slayers return." Xander adopted his Announcer Man voice. Anya jerked up from where she had been sleeping on his shoulder. Willow stretched in Tara's arms and felt the blonde witch yawn into her hair.

"Well, 'triumphant' may be overstating it a bit." Buffy leaned her back against the basement door as she shut it behind her, one hand holding her ribs.

Dawn, somehow, was not bleary-eyed in the slightest. "Oh my god, you didn't beat them down? What? How?"

Anya blinked at the pitch the younger Summers found there at the end. Buffy just made a face, but nodded. "Mr. Gordo is biding his time."

Xander looked at everyone gathered around the television. "Now, see, I know it's fashionable for everyone to laugh at Xander the Weakling, but who's laughing now, huh?" A thought hit him. "Hey, me and Buff are in the same bruise club!"

"And, Xan, we all pop our aspirin one at a time." Buffy gave him a half-smile. Willow just rolled her eyes, pulling Tara up by the hand as the two moved to be more helpful with the blonde's bruises.

The vampire was making her way gingerly down the stairs behind Faith, who still managed a swagger in spite of the dumpster to the gut she'd taken earlier. Buffy resolved to ferret out the secret of that swagger, and then just resolved to watch it.

Faith was busy replying to Xander. "Maybe not so much laughin', but, hey, there was emasculatin', which was pretty fuckin' funny." The brunette still had enough presence of mind to throw a little extra sway into her walk. She grinned back over her shoulder to catch her lover looking. Buffy looked only mildly embarrassed.

Xander just stared at the dark slayer. "Okaaay, perhaps we're working with different definitions of humor here. And I'm just going to roll with 'emasculating' as symbolic—"

"Dunno 'bout that. You don't think B's pointy-ass boots are just for killin' spiders in corners, do ya?"

The young man's eyes blinked wide. "Eep!"

Anya made a codpiece for her husband with her hand, scowling over at the vampire slayer and her vicious boots. "Buffy!"

The blonde slayer took a swat at Faith. "Look, you've made him go all pale." And to Anya: "Don't worry, it was just a knee to the groin for our friend Warren."

Willow smirked a little as she imagined it, then furrowed her brow. "Wait…so how did they get all super-y?" Her mind raced eagerly ahead. "Magic?"

"Magic Balls of Invincibility or something." Right after she said it, Buffy paused, looking over at Xander, who had his mouth open, grinning. "Hey, I know, I know. But, see, the joke's too easy. Thus, Buffy takes the high road." She moved next to Faith, peeling back the leather jacket to raise the white of her lover's tank and evaluate the damage underneath.

"Balls. Hee!" Xander was still snickering.

Dawn sighed. "Thereby leaving the low road for others." Her eyes went a little wide at the spread of purple across Faith's ribs. "God! What is those guys' deal?"

The dark slayer shrugged. "Same old. Warren wants to be the big game in town. Don't think he took too kindly to us crushin' those hopes. Literally." She held her arm up to the light. "Fuckin' dumpster tore the jacket. Figures. It was my best."

Buffy was more concerned with the blood underneath. Dawn handed her a wet cloth. The blonde slayer started to take it, then motioned for her sibling to go ahead. Buffy took a step back, still watching Dawn dab at the smear of dark red. "Faith, it's your only." She saw the other girl shrug. "Which means we've got to add that to the list of things he'll pay for once we find him. One bad-ass leather jacket, black. One treasured pig, rotund." She ground her teeth. "I still can't believe he had a jet pack, for crying out loud."

Xander's eyes lit up. "A jet pack? That's so freaking—" He caught sight of the slayers staring at him, unamused. "—not cool. Really, the nerve of some people."

Faith snorted, then looked over at Buffy, who was still glowering in general. "Hey, B, don't sweat it. Not like we won't be able to get 'em. And we got some good licks in 'long the way."

A shadow passed across the blonde's face as she remembered how one of those involved her teeth at Warren's throat. She could still taste the tang in her mouth. Thankfully Faith hadn't said anything about that.

Willow saw the shadow, saw Buffy see her seeing the shadow, and saw Buffy paste a smile on her face. She filed it away and talked over the moment. "I still don't get it—if they were all Mr. Invincible, how did you and Faith—?"

Faith answered instead, throwing the comment over her shoulder as she pulled Buffy's shirt over her head and revealed another bruised, pale torso. She set her jaw as she felt Buffy wince. "Naw, just the one guy, Warren, with the super 'nads. The other guys were just tag-alongs."

The redhead's brow was still furrowed. "But how could Jonathan and Andrew get away, because, I mean, hello, slayers! And it's not like those guys are the world's brightest bulbs. Or strongest bulbs. Which doesn't really work as a phrase, but, moving on…."

Buffy was biting her lip as the dark slayer's fingers hovered over her ribs. "Faith had them, but had to let them go—"

Willow jumped on that, not waiting for her friend to finish. "You let them go?! They've been trying to kill Buffy!"

Buffy rubbed her hand across her eyes. "Will, they've been trying to hurt Faith, too—"

That same dark slayer interrupted, talking straight to the witch. "Look, so I them go. You act like they're in the same caliber as, I don't know, somebody bad, or something."

Willow shot right back. "Like you? Like the mayor?"

Faith's eyes went hard. "Fuck you."

"Both of you, stop it." Buffy hopped off the edge of the bed and stood between the two girls, one hand flat on the middle of Faith's chest, fingers curling just slightly at the tip to hook the top edge of Faith's tank. Buffy looked over at the redhead. "She had to leave them to help me, Will."

From a few feet away, Anya chimed in. "Willow does have a point, Buffy. I mean, it's not like you were really going to die. Unless there was a pointy wooden stick, in which case you might have, but otherwise Faith just let them go for no reason."

Dawn glared over at the ex-vengeance demon. "Maybe I'm crazy here, but I think it's pretty great that Faith stepped in. That's sort of the kind of person I want out there with my sister at night." She linked her arm with Faith, who turned those liquid brown eyes on her and that linked arm, a little taken aback.

"And nobody ever likes a backseat slayer." He smiled to soften his criticism. Willow's lips pressed together until she felt Tara's hand on her arm and consciously let it go. Xander stepped into the awkwardness and filled it. "Unless it's backseat slayer_s_, which could be entertaining under—ow!" Anya's smack stopped him, and he could only grin at the rest of them.

Faith looked from Willow to Xander and then put on a grin herself, winking. "Oh, it's always entertainin', Xan-man. But right now I'm gonna go entertain myself in the shower."

Xander watched her go. "I think that came out dirtier than she intended."

Buffy was watching, too, appreciating the toss of that dark hair, that familiar backside, and found herself missing the other girl's tingle already. "Pretty sure it didn't."

* * *

"Do you want to bandage it?" Willow held up a roll of gauze out of the first aid kit, eyes a question.

Buffy looked down at the bruise against her pale skin. "Nah. There's not any blood and the rest of it will heal, so I guess there's no point really." She looked up where her counterpart had disappeared into the house above. "Faith could probably use some, though." Her eyes caught Willow's. The witch held them for a moment, making a face, then Tara swooped in, taking the bandage from her girlfriend's hand.

"I'll take it to her."

Buffy smiled her thanks. Both Willow and Buffy watched her go. Then Buffy watched Willow watch her go. "Things are going good for you two, huh? Still sharing the same bedroom?"

Those green eyes came back to her, lit up this time. "Yeah." The redhead ducked her head for a moment, looked to the door Tara had just walked through, then back at the blonde slayer, smiling even more broadly. "Yeah and yay and possibly even yippee! She just makes me feel so grounded, you know, like this safe place where I don't have to pretend anything?"

"I do." Buffy smiled, knowing her own grounding influence upstairs in the shower. The thought of all those parts Faith must be soaping up there hit her. Why was she down here, again? She almost found herself rising from the bed, but then remembered the sun.

Willow was still rushing on. "In fact I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that I'm happy." She crossed her arms across her chest and nodded once, matter-of-fact.

The slayer snapped back to the conversation with a look of theatrical horror. "Oh god, Will! Don't say that! This is the Hellmouth!" Looking frantically around the room. "Please, somebody find some wood for this girl to knock on!"

Xander made a show of searching. Dawn offered Xander's head as a potential substitute.

Willow still looked resolved. "No need, guys. I'm just gonna reach out and catch that thing called happiness and not be ashamed of it one bit. No sir-ree-Bob."

Buffy looked at the other girl for a moment, smiling. "Well, good for you." She knocked her shoulder playfully against Willow's. "But, even though I'm under the influence of the h-word myself, I'm just going to stand outside the range of the lightning strike, if that's alright with you. Somewhere in the vicinity of the next county over."

"You're going to miss out, then, because Xander and I saved _Daughters of Darkness_ just for—"

"We still watchin' movies?" Faith stood that the top of the stairs, still toweling off her hair. Buffy could smell the freshness of her soap, the newly-laundered t-shirt, the blood under the bandage on her arm. She wondered how long the brunette had been standing there. Whether she'd heard the part about happiness.

"Yeah, Faith. It's a classic. Lesbian vampires." Xander waggled his eyebrows at her.

The dark slayer grinned back, and then raised her own eyebrow at the blonde who was watching her come down the stairs. "Well, we all know I'm into that shit."

* * *

"It was a masterpiece of filmmaking, Giles."

The Englishman raised a skeptical eyebrow at Xander.

Dawn seconded Xander's assessment. "The suspense, the blood, the powerful moral that, if one is a person on a bicycle, one should never take on a vampire in a car—how could that not be good?"

Giles' eyebrow only climbed higher as the group of them shuffled into Buffy's old room, scanning for more cameras in the lamplight.

"Ya know, B, if we just cut your hair and put a little wave in it...." Faith gathered Buffy's long waves in her hands and folded them under, leaning back to look.

"Faith, she was old!"

"Sorry to break it to ya, B, but you _are_ older. And, just like lesbian vamp lady, ya got a thing for young hotties like me." She paused, adopting a pose of exaggerated consideration, pondering the question: "So am I gonna be the brunette squeeze that dies or the young straight girl you corrupt?"

Xander smirked. "Hello, Mrs. Robinson." Faith made a little "rowr!" hand gesture.

Both of them garnered a stuck-out tongue from Buffy. "Lots of big talk for someone who's, like, a whole year younger. And pretty corrupted already, I might add."

"Brunette, then. Check."

"That's not what I—!"

"Ahem." The former Watcher cut in. "I believe our original purpose up here was to ferret out any additional surveillance devices, not to dissect 1970s French cinema."

"Found one!"

Buffy looked over to her sister, who shouted from the corner, and then back to Giles. "See, there was ferreting." And then it dawned on her. "Ohmygod, they were in my room!" It was still hers, really. Willow had even taken out what few things she had brought in, taking them slowly back across the hall, with Tara, so that now it was back to unused, but still full of so much that was Buffy. Faith leaned back against the windowsill and took it in. Everyone else crowded around the small camera that had been situated behind her ice-skating trophies.

"Do you think they put one in—? Oh yuck!" Dawn suddenly rushed out of the room to her own. The rest of them filtered out into the hallway.

Buffy spotted Willow and Tara in her mother's old room—theirs now. She leaned against the door frame, watching their half-hearted search. "Find anything in here?"

Willow turned, blushing, one hand still lingering on Tara's hip. "Not found, but still looking, because you never know and it's very good to be thorough."

From behind Buffy, Faith's snicker: "Thorough."

Buffy batted at her lover with a hand and turned to leave the two alone. "Think Will and Tara have that one covered."

Giles nodded. "Then we should also check outside. Presumably they would have wanted to capture both your and Faith's comings and goings."

Buffy pinched Faith's side before she could make the comment on the tip of her tongue. But then she started laughing herself as Giles rolled his eyes and both girls, smirking, followed him and Xander and Anya outside to the backyard. Giles flicked on the outdoor lights against the gloom of dusk. Buffy stood in the glow of one of them, hand on her hips as she tried to decide where to begin. Faith thought it was almost like sunlight. She took the shovel handed to her and reluctantly went in the direction Giles pointed, on the other side of the lawn. Xander went with her, idly jabbing at the bushes with a stick.

"Is that poking thing really helping?" Anya was tagging along behind him.

"No, but it makes me look helpful and permits me to watch Faith try to figure out what the heck she's supposed to be doing with the shovel." Xander looked over at the dark slayer, who was, indeed, staring at the implement. She looked back up at Xander. "Oh, you're doing fine, really. A promising career on the Home & Garden channel." He nodded, and she flipped him off. "But not with that sort of gesture, missy."

"Found anything?" Giles looked up from where he had been searching behind the recycling bins.

"A ladybug." Buffy held it up on the tip of her finger.

"Not quite what I had in mind."

"Just roots and shit over here. And what am I supposed to be diggin' anyway. Not like they'd be buryin' any—"

"Oh, I'm the one looking for cameras." Buffy grinned over at her. "You're supposed to be planting the spring bulbs." She saw the dark slayer look down at the flowerbed in horror before realizing the blonde was joking. A dirt clod came flying in her direction. It thudded into the ground next to her. "Wow, Giles, think _somebody_'s in need of a little accuracy training there because, you know, that aim is just not gonna cut it in the work-a-day slayer world."

"And if I'd meant it to hit ya, it woulda." Faith shot back. "I just didn't think my ears could take the shriek if I got dirt on your pretty white sweater."

"I, for one, just hope the demon population doesn't ever get wind of your weakness, Buff." Xander shook his head.

"Oh, I wouldn't call it a weakness, Xander." Buffy gave Faith a mock growl as she pushed the clod away with the toe of her boots. "Pretty sure they would pay if they tried to mess with—what? What is it?" The blonde slayer stopped, watching Xander's face go pale as his eyes stared past her shoulder.

"Warren." Flat.

Buffy blinked at Xander, then turned around to find Warren behind her, wild-eyed, waving a gun in one hand. Pointing it at her chest.

And in that second, she looked over her shoulder to make sure the others were out of the way and saw Faith not even turning from the flowerbed, her mouth already tossing the words "What does that limpdick want this time?" over her shoulder. Buffy whirled back to see Warren's face reddening, the "you didn't think I'd let you get away with that, did you?", the gun jerking towards a new target, Xander pushing his wife away and lunging to knock Faith out of that line of fire. The kick of the gun which Buffy realized then he'd never fired before—probably never fired a gun at all—and was firing it wildly now, shots into the backyard, and Xander not there in time, and some far away shattering of windows in the house, and Faith taking a bullet in her back.

Warren turned and ran.

Buffy's mouth opened into a long wail that had her lover's name trapped somewhere in it before it became just one long sound of the pain traveling through the line between them. Staggering a few steps towards the sprawled slayer until the biting tang of the spreading blood hit her nose and stopped her short, twisting her face. And then the wail still vibrating in her throat became a growing snarl of fangs and pale fists and a final roaring "No!" as she flew out of the backyard after him.

In the midst of that wail, a scream cutting in from inside, upstairs. And Dawn, at the door to the backyard, looking back up at it, then down to Faith, where Xander was turning her over, then over to Giles, to make sense of it all.

The Englishman was throwing the phone at Anya, still kneeling on the ground. "Call 911. Tell them someone's been shot." He glanced up at the window upstairs and the broken glass. "Maybe two people." Anya was staring at the phone like she'd never seen one. "Now!" His shout made her flinch.

He opened his mouth to say something to Dawn, but then saw Willow in the doorway. His question died in his throat as the black-haired witch stared at him.

"Which way?"

He didn't mean to say anything, but his eyes flickered over to the gate Warren had dashed through.

She was gone before he could stop her.

"Anya, give Xander the phone and get upstairs." Giles looked at her only long enough to see that she was doing it. "Dawn, you need to go after them." He saw Dawn open her mouth and then shut it again and start for the gate. "And take a stake." She stared at him, grabbed back for one, and then was gone.


	53. Chapter 53

A/N: And so it begins.... Lot going on here, so, again, feedback appreciated to an absolutely ridiculous level.

* * *

Dawn ran and ran, only coming to a skidding stop when she stumbled upon Willow kneeling, shaking, in the middle of a graveyard clearing. The trees around them were dark and thick. The path curved through and went on out of sight among the graves.

"Willow! I'm so glad I—!" She caught a glimpse of who—or rather what—the witch was kneeling over. "Oh god." She breathed out the words and then bent over and threw up next to Warren's bloodied body.

And then Willow was shocked from her trembling thousand-yard-stare, now crying and beating her fists over and over into one already-caved-in side of his ribcage so that the body moved a little, rocking back and forth with those inexpert blows, as Willow's spat out "why?" over and over again and the body took it and took it and took it.

"Stop it! What did you—? God! Stop!" Dawn tried to pull the other girl back, her tennis shoe slipping a little in the slick. No traction. She looked past Willow's small bloody fists and caught sight of the ripped-out throat. Her stomach heaved again, and she put her hand down to steady herself. It came up red. She stared at it. "How could you—?" She had to gulp in air. "Willow, he's dead!"

Those black eyes, angry and flat, looked up and found the younger girl's. "Does it matter? He killed Tara!"

Dawn paled. "She's—?"

"I _saw_ the shot! I _saw _it go through her! He made me see that!" A charge of electricity arced between her fingers and the body, making the flesh jump.

"Willow!!" Dawn jerked away and fell back on her ass, using her hands and knees to scoot away. You couldn't reason with those eyes.

"He made me see that!" She was yelling it at Warren, at Dawn, at the dark grove of trees around them.

"I know, but…but, Willow, he's dead! You can't just—!"

"Oh, so everyone else gets to do something, but not me!? Oh, nooo! I'm supposed to just take it and be nice and smile and say 'thank you for shooting Tara, thank you so much'!"

"I _didn't_ say that! I'm just saying he's a _person_ and—" The younger Summers had her head down, shaking it back and forth.

"No!" The sharp note of it made them both jump. The eager electric charge still crackled on Willow's fingertips. She hardly noticed its flare. "He's not a person! He's a thing. No, a sub-thing! They all are!" The last a reminder and a realization that there were others out there. Black eyes swung towards the path.

Dawn's head darted back up at that. "They?" It hit her. "Oh, no, no, no…you can't…Willow, I can't let you—" She reached out to grab the other girl where she was starting to get up. The girl she had shared a house with and made pancakes with and….

A flick of Willow's wrist, shrugging off that hand, and Dawn went flying back into the trunk of a tree.

Willow heard the thump as the younger girl hit it and slid down, unconscious. "I wasn't asking."

And then a snarling blur of white came down out of the tree where it'd been perched and watching, and slammed into the witch, and then rolled off into a crouch a few feet away. Willow's eyes flashed, looking up, finding dark green eyes staring back from behind the strands of blonde, loose and wild.

"Don't touch her." Through bared teeth.

"Oh, so, what, you protect her and you protect Faith, but did you protect Tara? No. Did you keep her from being shot? No." The witch was already on her feet, firing the questions.

Buffy's inside clenched at the mention of protecting Faith, of protecting Tara. At her being shot. At both of them being shot. Her eyes slit in Warren's direction, remembering. His face when she'd caught up with him. Throwing him to the ground. The kicks that lifted him up to crash down again. Tearing in with her teeth.

Somewhere in all of that, his hand catching the collar of her white sweater, ripping it. A last ditch effort to pull her off him.

And all the blood.

"I don't protect anyone anymore." Her sweater still hanging off one shoulder, the neck gaping.

"Gee, wow, what great timing!" The words bit. A hoarse hysteria. "And now you even want to take this away from me!" Her hand gesturing, shaking, at Warren, where he lay.

The slayer trembling in her own anger. "He's the one who took things! He took from me! He shot Fai—"

"You think I care about Faith? I don't _care_ about Faith!" Screaming now. A light growing and growing around her until Buffy was backing up and backing up towards the edge of the clearing and its dark. "I care about Tara! And she's gone! And I can't get her back!" A hiccupping, crying wail of words. The light swelling with her as she stepped towards Buffy, putting hard bark at the blonde's back. And the vampire shrinking from that light, hating the cornered feel, seeing the edge of the sunshine steal forward. "Somebody's got to pay for that!" The light nearly surrounding, pressing, trapping Buffy. "You won't take that away…not again!"

A chanted word and the energy flew from her hand straight into the blonde slayer's forehead, knocking it back and knocking her out. Willow left her there in the open air, under the sky above, turning to the path and the graveyard beyond.

* * *

"God, will you just smell that blood!" Spike followed his nose into the clearing, shifting the grocery bag of blood from his hip to his hand. Maybe he wouldn't need to stoop to cow's blood at all. Warren was spread out, still and sticky. A coagulated mess. A little less than fresh now, but he shrugged and knelt down. "Eh…s'pose beggars can't be— Well, hello."

He caught sight of the other still bodies keeping Warren company. Looking from Dawn to Buffy to Warren, then back to Buffy. The white sweater was blood-spattered. Back to Warren.

"Isn't she just a fast learner, then?"

"Man! It's like a full-on buffet over here!"

Spike spun around to see another vampire just standing and staring at the bounty laid out in the clearing. "Who the—?"

The newbie plowed on, giving a little wave. "S'alright if I get in on this with ya? 'Cause, ya know, it really looks like a lot for one. But, wow, the options!" His head swiveled between the three prone forms, marveling.

"Right." The blonde vampire snorted. "A veritable cornucopia of nothing once all your yammering wakes 'em up. These people aren't dead, you know." He took a drag, toeing Warren's body. "Well, 'side from this one." He furrowed his brow. "And the blonde bit there. So, right, one outta three."

The other guy's face fell. "Not fresh, huh? Man, it gets so gummy when it's coagulated."

"And if I'd invited you here, I might be feelin' like a bad host, but seein' as how I didn't…."

"No, no, I get you, man. Always grateful." He gave a mock salute and started towards Buffy's sprawled form, licking the tip of one fang at that young neck, the red flush of her lips.

Spike rolled his eyes. "She's a vampire, you know."

"Wha—? Oh, no way! She doesn't look…." He knelt down, brushing aside that blonde mane to lay two fingers where her pulse would be.

Spike jerked him back before his fingers had hardly touched her skin. "Nobody touches her."

"Right, gotcha, she's yours. I'm just gonna…" He pointed at Dawn, moving over that direction instead.

Spike was tempted to say nothing, but the sight of the younger Summers there, curled on one side. "Oh, bugger it!" Under his breath. Then, louder: "Tell you what, mate…I'm lookin' for a partner. Somebody shake this town up with me, you know. You interested?" He had to bite back the urge to laugh at his own words.

Those words (and not the reined in scorn) stopped the other vampire two steps away from Dawn. "Really? You mean that?"

"Well, yeah, but you know it's only fair you do me a favor. Kinda prove yourself like." Seeing the other guy's nod, Spike hooked a thumb in Warren's direction. "This guy has two friends. Been talkin' shit in Jimmy's about bein' all badass and whatnot. You bring one or both of them to me at my crypt, and I'll let you have the girl all to yourself. What say?"

The vampire practically skipped off to his assigned task.

Spike looked down at the bloody mess of Warren. "You said it. Whoever the fuck turned him ought to be shot." And then over at Buffy, still and perfect, one shoulder pale and bare. Taking a step towards her. Catching sight of Dawn out of the corner of his eye. "Oh, right. Guess I oughta do somethin' 'bout you, huh?" He sniffed, then pushed her into the undergrowth, out of sight.

And then could finally turn to Buffy, lift up that slim body in his arms, feel her whimper a little, smile at that, take her back to his crypt, and lay her across his bed.

* * *

"Giles. Problem."

The former watcher turned, still holding the phone against his ear. Xander was standing next to the booth in the hallway, trying to look nonchalant. Both of them looked back at the room a little ways down the hall, filled with machines they were too far away to hear and people they knew but were too far away to see. It was all just an open doorway from where they were.

"Dear lord, is she—?" And then because they found themselves in a place where clarification about wounded women was necessary: "Which—?" Giles started to pull away, to rush back down the white-tiled hallway. Xander put a hand on his arm to stop him.

"Not that." Xander could see the older man relax a little, though it only made his face look more tired. "Police."

"Damn!" Giles hissed it under his breath, the tension returning. He could see the black of a holstered hip through the doorway down the hall. Turning back, he saw Xander's eyebrow raised at the phone in his hand and responded to its question. "Still no answer at Buffy's home."

"Where are they?" The young man's brow furrowed. "Giles, they ought to be here."

"I wish I knew."

Xander sighed. "Anyway, the nurses must've called the police because there was a gun involved." Xander was keeping his voice down. "I think they suspect they think they know who Faith is, even if they can't talk to her yet. They've already handcuffed her to the bed."

"She's still out from the surgery?"

"For now." He sighed, rubbing his hand across his face. "I think they know they're not going to be able to talk to Tara, but they look like they're going to sit it out and wait for Faith to wake up."

"Right." Giles sucked in a breath. "What we'll have to do then is get her out of there. I'll go home and get my bolt cutters and perhaps when I get back you and Anya could manufacture some sort of distraction to keep the officers—"

"Or we could just do it Faith's way."

Both men turned to find Anya standing next to them.

Giles stared at her. "And what way would that be?"

Incredulous: "You have to ask me that?" Giles and Xander had to admit she had a point. They could come up with some idea on their own. Anya just shrugged. "And, anyway, she's already done it." They were both staring at her again, then back to the shrill beeps in the hallway behind them, the turmoil of people appearing, going in and out of the hospital room, and then, finally, heads whipping around to follow the tip of Anya's finger where it pointed to the door Faith was disappearing through, a handcuff bracelet and snapped chain rattling loosely around her wrist. "She's awake, by the way."

But Giles and Xander were already down the hallway, following the slayer out the door. Giles pointed Anya back down the other way. "Stay with Tara. And don't say anything about Faith."

Xander waited until he made it out the doorway outside to start yelling. "Faith!"

The dark slayer kept walking, her jaw set, holding the dark blue police pants up with one fisted hand. They could make out the bulky bandaging on her back through the oversized white undershirt.

"Faith! Faith! Hey, wait!" Xander lunged to catch her by the arm. She turned to look at him, jerking her arm away before she blinked to recognize him. Xander's voice cut into her thoughts. "Where are you going?" She turned back to look at the away she'd been going towards without even thinking about it. Fight or flight. Old habits.

She ran a hand back through her hair, still walking stiffly away from the hospital, trying to ignore the pain. "Well, I'm not fuckin' goin' back there. I'm not goin' back to jail." She saw Giles look down at the blood smeared across her knuckles, spattered on her arm and shirt. She wiped the back of her hand roughly against her pants. By way of explanation: "Police guy got a bloody nose."

Xander's brow furrowed. "Well, that's about the worst timing—" Giles and Faith both looked at him. "Never mind. I get it." Then he and Giles looked at each other then back at the slayer again.

She met their eyes, defiant. "Oh, don't even. You guys been tryin' to tell me since I got here that I didn't need to be in jail, so don't be givin' me shit 'cause some blue gets hurt."

"Fair enough, Faith." Giles nodded, shifting to take charge of the situation. "But they'll be looking for you. And they know enough to connect you with Buffy's house. You'll have to come stay with me." He stopped to look her in the eye. "Unless you had something else in mind."

She glanced off in the distance. Then back to him. "No. Your place is good. Sooner is good, too, 'cause I kinda feel like I'm gonna pass out." She felt her peripheral vision blurring.

Xander reached out again for her arm, and this time she let him take it. "Well, you did get shot."

She scowled, tracing back the pain. "Right." For the first time since she woke and found herself chained to the bed, she thought back to how she'd gotten there. Her eyes went wide "Oh, fuck. Fuck…I saw Red's girl back there."

"One of his shots hit her. She's in a coma."

"Warren." Her jaw set, gritting the word out.

"Warren." Giles confirmed. "He hit the two of you and then ran." He paused, the furrow in his brow getting deeper. "Buffy— Buffy and Willow went after him."

Faith looked over at him, forcing her eyes to focus, knowing exactly what that meant. "Shit." She squeezed her eyes shut, then opened them wide. "Shit. I gotta—"

Giles put out a hand to hold her. "We're already working on it. Dawn's gone after them. And you'd be something of a target out there." He raised an eyebrow at her purloined clothes, her injured state.

Faith's head swiveled between him and Xander and the still-dark streets and the police sirens coming towards the hospital and back to Xander, who she realized was talking to her.

"Giles is right, Faith. At least for now."

The sirens closer, the officers starting to come through the automatic doors, Giles, Xander. The spot between her shoulder blade a stabbing pain.

She could only nod.

* * *

"You're never going to believe this, but he actually came up to me."

Spike was coming up the stairs, the blonde slayer still out across the bed in the room behind him. He had been watching her murmuring sleep. For a moment, the bleached vampire couldn't imagine who this rambling idiot standing in his entry way was.

The younger vampire was still talking. "Sorry if I startled you. I tried to knock but…."

Spike's brow was still furrowed. And then Andrew stepped out from behind him, clutching a satchel that looked as though it might be packed for a weekend trip. And Spike grinned.

"Right. Found him, did ya?"

"Yeah, he was in Jimmy's, looking to buy a little protection of the demon persuasion. Something about being the nemesis of a slayer."

"It's plural slayers." Andrew was trying very hard to look quite at home in the crypt, talking danger with demons. He was addressing Spike. "And this guy said you could provide the sort of protection I was looking for." He held up his bag. "I have money. Or I can pay you back in the dark arts. I know some spells."

"It talks." Spike sauntered over. "So you think you're in need of a little help, huh? Got yourself in a bit of a mess."

Andrew puffed out his chest. "The slayers are looking for all of us. You might say that we've given them reason to fear us."

"That so?" Spike shared a look with the vampire, slinging his arm companionably around the other demon's shoulders as he spoke to him. "Gotta say, you've come through on this one. And didn't even have a taste?"

"Well, I wasn't sure what the protocol was…."

Spike grinned, slapping the vampire on the back. "Oh, go on! You've earned it."

"Hey thanks, man!"

In the background, Andrew was sputtering now, looking from one fanged smile to the next. But he was held now, around the neck, by a steely hand, and could only let out a high-pitched scream as the fangs sunk in.

* * *

A short distance away, Dawn started awake at the sound, smacking her head into the low branch of a juniper bush.

"Ow!" And then noticing her circumstances. "How in the world did I—?"

The scream cut through the early morning again.

"Buffy?"

It didn't sound quite right, but the branches scraped across her face, grabbing at her clothes as she struggled free, straining to hear where the sound had come from.

* * *

Spike watched the other vampire for a moment, watching the tempting pull of blood from vessel. The flailing victim Andrew made.

And then he rammed a stake into the vampire's back and through his heart. Andrew coughed on the dust, his hand going up to his bleeding neck trying to staunch it.

"Ohmygod, ohmygod! I've been bitten! I don't want to be a vampire!"

"Relax, mate. No one's thinkin' about turnin' you."

Andrew stared at him, open-mouthed. "But you just told him to bite me!"

Now it was Spike's turn to grab him, but this time by the arm. He dragged a finger through the young man's still-bleeding wound, bringing it up to his tongue, tasting it. "So I did." Hauling Andrew by the arm towards the stairway down. "Now let's go see what we can do about waking Sleeping Beauty and the Beast, shall we?"


	54. Chapter 54

A/N: And another, a little bit early. Feedback? Please?

* * *

Buffy was already awake, sitting up in Spike's bed amidst the turmoil of white sheets, holding the back of her head.

Seeing someone coming down the stairs, someone she could ask: "Where am—?" But before she got her question out, she saw Spike, and her eyes widened, looking back down at the bed she had been lying across.

And then she heard Andrew's muffled whimpering from under the hand clamped over his mouth.

Her head jerked back up. She could smell his fear, the transfixing blood on his neck, the fluttering pulse that kept it flowing, pushed by fear to and from his heart. Fear of her. Fear of her fangs, visible as they were through parted lips. They still hadn't retracted from…earlier.

"Well, hello, love." The vampire was watching her, his mouth curving up into a grin at the vision greeting him: Buffy kneeling on his bed, all jeans and white sweater and tousled hair and glinting teeth. He hauled Andrew around by the neck in front of him. "Lookie here what the cat dragged in." A pause to let the metallic tang fill the room. The smell of it almost made Spike's eyes roll back…the real thing! His one taste still filled his mouth. He could imagine what it was doing to her.

"Andrew?" Her voice confused, trying to piece together why he'd be here. And then the picture behind her eyelids of Warren as he had been, walking into her backyard—hers!—waving a gun. Killing Faith.

It just sat there like a stone in her stomach.

Then there was Andrew in front of her. Squirming. Managing to bite down on Spike's hand.

"Ow!" The bleached vampire smacked him upside the head. "You little shit! You bit me!"

Andrew shrieked back, still trying to wiggle free of the vampire's grip on his throat. "Well, you tricked me! You didn't say she was gonna be here! She's the one I need protection from!"

"I'll say you do." Spike snorted, looking from the writhing young man back to Buffy's eyes, fixed and green on Andrew. She was up off the bed now, standing there, wavering. Spike exchanged one hand on Andrew's throat for another. Holding up the smeared blood on the one he'd just removed. Running his tongue over his red palm. Watching the slayer watch him. Spike spoke to Andrew, but looked at Buffy. "You ain't seen your little friend, have you?"

Andrew's brow furrowed. "Who? Warren?"

Buffy's eyes flicked back as Andrew said the word. She answered for Spike, her voice hoarse. "Yeah, Warren! Remember him? Dark hair , unbelievably cocky, issues with women?" She was slowly moving towards them now.

Andrew rolled his eyes. "Um, duh. Triumvirate of evil, remember? It's not really that difficult to know the other two."

Spike, in the background. "Just a suggestion, but I don't think sarcasm is your best—" He stopped, shrugging. "Oh, you know, what the fuck? Knock yourself out."

And Andrew did, looking around for the crypt's exit. "So what about Warren? Have you seen him? We were gonna meet up somewhere, but he hasn't told me where yet, and I've been trying to keep Jonathan from following me because it's just gonna be the two of us now. Just me and Warren: a dynamic duo of badness. I was just supposed to arrange the protection and—"

"I don't care!" She cut him off with what was practically a scream, her eyes squeezed shut against it. Buffy put her hand up in front of her like that could stop his babble of words. Her own voice sounded strangled. "I don't care! He killed Faith!"

Andrew stopped, abruptly, looking at her for a moment, open-mouthed. He looked back at Spike, as if for confirmation. "He did that? Wow, he is so bold!"

And then a fist cracked into his jaw and there was an angry slayer six inches from his face. Spike's hand around his throat gave way to Buffy's. And the slayer was squeezing.

"He killed her!" Buffy's voice was edging into hysteria. The clench in her stomach. The hole left. The sound of the gun shot reverberating over and over—so loud! "He killed her and that's all you have to say!?" She wasn't leaving him air to say much of anything now.

Spike leaned in to whisper in the young man's ear. "She killed him, you know. Ripped his throat out." Chuckling as Andrew's eyes flashed wide and he tried to shrink back into the wall.

Spike slipped around behind the slayer, his chest to her back, so that she was in between the vampire and her prey. She was so focused on Andrew, on his gulping fear, she hardly noticed. But the blood was all around her now. Smeared on Andrew's neck, on Spike's hand that was reaching around to rest on top of her own hand that was encircling Andrew's neck, that was now in the blood itself.

Whatever leftover notions of restraint she had were slipping away, quaintly suited for another world where she was Buffy and there was Faith. Here there was neither. Only the heat of her anger. Warren waving the gun. The shot. Faith's back arching as it hit and sent her pitching forward. Her body in the dirt.

Spike's finger wrapped around to find the slayer's lips, tracing the pink bottom one. The smell of blood everywhere!

Back up and she backed into him.

Her mouth was already reaching out to catch at the blood he was offering. A cry stuck in her throat at the taste of it. Spike could feel her eager teeth graze the tip of his forefinger and swallowed his own groan, pushing in closer to her, which pushed her closer to Andrew, which pushed all of them closer to the wall.

* * *

"Is anybody—? Buffy? Spike?"

Dawn burst through the door of Spike's crypt, the question on her lips, but dying in the emptiness of the room. She hadn't heard the scream again. This direction. The lights were on. It had been her best shot.

She picked at the leaves tangled in her hair. Tried not to think of Warren and Willow, and Faith and Tara. Well, pretty much anything. She rolled her stake back and forth across her palm. Where to now? How long before morning?

And then the rustling and small, strangled cries floated up to her from the room down below.

"Spike?" She asked the question softly, like someone who didn't want an answer. She moved slowly to the stairway down.

From her vantage point she could make out first the bed, with its rumpled sheets. One and then two steps down and the lamplight showed her the hard stone floor. Three, four, and five steps and there was more of it. Louder sounds, like gasps.

Six and seven and there were the three of them in the corner, only Andrew able to see her, across the shoulders of the two vampires in front of him. His eyes squeezing shut right as she came down and right as Buffy's teeth sank into his neck.

Her sister in between vampire and victim.

Dawn saw Buffy losing herself in blood.

Dawn saw Spike pressing into Buffy. One hand circling her waist, clamping those slim hips back tight against his. The other hand reaching up to tangle in the loose waves of her hair, holding the back of her head where it was, at Andrew's neck. His lips bent close to her ear.

Dawn didn't even think. She just threw the stake. It flew end over end to bury itself in Spike's back.

And then, as quickly as that, he was gone.

"Buffy!"

At Dawn's cry, the blonde jerked her head back away from the wound she'd been so fixed on making. She looked at Dawn, registered the other girl's horror, and turned quickly away, burying her face with an "oh god!" She staggered to one side and then let herself slide down the wall to the ground.

"No, her! Slay her!" Andrew was frantically pointing at Buffy, holding the other hand to his neck to stem the blood flowing there. "You got the wrong one!"

Dawn's stake rolled to rest against the wall. Andrew bent and picked it up, holding it by the blunt end. He glanced at Buffy, and puffed out his chest, gripping the wooden weapon more firmly as if he would strike with it. Then he made a face and tossed it to Dawn. "You do it."

Dawn fumbled the bad throw but caught it and looked at it. She looked up at Buffy, who was turning to look at her, the tears on her face as plain as the unwholesome flush.

Andrew threw up his hands, seeing both of the just standing there, staring at each other. "God, what is wrong with you people? You're supposed to be the good guys!" He was still pointing at Buffy. "You are _so_ going to pay for this!" And then he was gone, running, tripping, up the stairs.

Dawn was left to stare at her sister, kneeling in Spike's dust. She had no idea anymore what Buffy might do. She realized she was still holding the stake in her hand.

But she took a deep breath instead and opened her mouth to say something, anything.

Before she could get it out, Buffy's own cry stopped her: "I can't!"

And then the elder Summers, too, was running.

* * *

Upstairs, Andrew had flung himself into the crypt door, slamming it open on the waning night outside.

And almost took out Jonathan.

"Andrew!" For a moment, other boy was just startled. Then his righteous indignation returned: "You were supposed to tell me where you were going, you little twit! I had to ask some gross slime demon at Jimmy's. How was I supposed to know where to meet you and—?"

"Don't you get it? We didn't want you to know! It was just going to be the two of us." Andrew's voice rising to a wail. "But now he's dead!"

"Whoah, wait…what? Warren's dead?"

"That bitch killed him! Buffy! Just like she just tried to kill me! I mean, hello, bleeding here!" He was gesturing emphatically at his neck with the hand not clamped to it.

Jonathan was sputtering. "Buffy did what? She's not like that!"

"Oh, wow, I must've been mistaken then. You know, these blonde slayer dykes…they all look the same." Andrew rolled his eyes. "God! Why couldn't she have gone after you first?"

"Don't worry. You'll get your turn."

At the new voice, both of them whipped their heads around to find Willow standing not ten feet away.

"Willow? Your hair!" Andrew opted for observation.

Jonathan opted for reality. "Oh, shit."

Those black, red-rimmed eyes landed on the one who had spoken last. She cocked her head a little to one side. "Who knew you were the smarter one?" She hadn't moved towards them, and that was worse. Her voice was hard. "Does that mean you planned it?"

"No, no, no." Jonathan shook his head back and forth. Whatever it was, he knew he didn't want to have planned it.

"Oh, he totally planned it." Andrew was backing away from his erstwhile partner in crime, pointing the finger at him.

Jonathan's mouth fell open. "That is_ so_ not true! And…and don't go blaming me when you don't even know what she's talking about!"

"Do so! Warren shot the slutty slayer and Willow's a big lesbian, so they probably had a thing!"

"What in the world did I have to do with—?"

But he was interrupted by Willow, who had heard nothing he had said, but everything Andrew had said. "Tara was nothing like Faith!"

As she screamed it, Jonathan could've sworn the moon dimmed a shade in the sky. And the shy girl he had gone to school with, whip smart in every class, a sweet smile if you could coax it out…she was not in the clearing with them. The emotions roiling across this girl's face: quivering rage and pain, and then the stony face of revenge sliding down over all of it.

What happened next was a series of still shots. None of them quite making sense together.

Andrew's furrowed brow. "The mousy blonde? Wait, who was talking about her?"

Willow's face as if she'd been struck by his words, the startling reminder that Tara wasn't etched in everyone else's mind. That they didn't have to see the bullet ripping through her over and over and over.

The abrupt shift from pain to bright, livid rage.

Buffy barreling out the crypt door, stopping in her tracks at the scene in front of her.

Dawn after her, still with stake in hand. "Buffy! Wait!" Scrambling through the door just as the energy crackling within Willow found its release and shot straight towards Andrew, lifting him off the ground in a blue flame.

The sizzle of burning flesh.

The sharp jolt of continental plates shifting somewhere deep beneath them, sheering off each other. They all fell down. Somewhere a car alarm.

Andrew's screaming.

Dawn's screaming.

Jonathan falling to his knees, throwing up.

Everything in Buffy that understood power and danger—and gave her the ability to confront both—sending her charging straight for the now-standing Willow, grabbing the trunk of a nearby slender tree and using its counterweight to swing around into a kick. The witch went flying into the side of a mausoleum.

Buffy's wide eyes at what she'd done.

Dawn's screaming, but not Andrew's anymore.

Charred skin at the entry point. On the ground now, awkwardly bent. Blisters. And, of course, the bloody wound at his neck. Coagulated. Buffy standing still, staring at it. Another savaged body.

"Buffy!" Dawn's voice interrupting. Buffy turning to look and then following the other girl's pointing finger. At Willow, shaking her head and rising.

The slayer moving again to violence, punching out at the still-groggy witch so that she sunk down again to the ground and again was quiet.

Jonathan wiped the spittle from his mouth, looking at the grass and at Dawn rather than at Andrew. The whole world sped back up to normal, but didn't look any less surreal for it.

He found his voice. "Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit." Curiously quiet. Early morning seemed the wrong time of day for it. "She's gonna wake up and oh shit and she's gonna think I had something to do with—"

"You've got to go." Buffy's words came out hoarse. Jonathan flinched when he looked over at her, and she saw it. She turned to Dawn instead. "You've got to get out of here. Take him somewhere. Maybe Giles. Some sort of spell to keep her from—" She waved a hand in Willow's direction. She didn't know how to describe all of this anyway.

An aftershock trembled through the ground. For a moment, they all braced themselves. You never knew when it was going to get bigger until it did or it didn't. This one didn't.

"Was that—?" Jonathan held on to a gravestone, looking at the ground like it would tell him if it was planning on moving. No one was listening to him.

"What are you going to do?" Dawn asked the question, but Buffy didn't answer it, choosing a different tack instead.

"I don't want you to get hurt."

Dawn almost said "I know," but then Jonathan was pulling at her arm and dragging her away, backpedalling to keep Willow and Buffy where he could see them until they were too far away to worry about and then Dawn couldn't see her sister anymore.

* * *

In the quiet space among the graves, Buffy was still looking at Willow. She wondered if her own eyes were that red and sunken.

Another, smaller aftershock.

And then there was the sun, ready at the horizon. Buffy could feel it, dully, and turned to run for somewhere. Somewhere not the crypt she'd woken up in. Somewhere not her home. In the end, just before the sun found its way up, she ducked down into the sewer and stayed there.

* * *

"Dawn! Good lord!" Giles yanked open the door hardly a second after her knuckles had hit the wood. He must've been just sitting there. "Are you—? And the earthquake? I trust it didn't— Were you able to find—?" It was a rush of questions built up over a whole night's worth of worrying. He spotted Jonathan behind her. "What's this?"

"Giles, Willow…." She trailed off, her brow furrowing at the unexplainable.

He jumped in. "Did you locate her? She needs to know about Tara. Anya's with her now, but I'm sure—"

"She killed Andrew!" Jonathan blurted it out, unable to figure out why these people weren't getting to the main and dangerous point here.

"Wait…ohmygod, Tara's alive?" Dawn grabbed Giles by the arm. "Tara's alive?" A higher pitch the second time and she launched herself at the former watcher, squeezing her eyes shut tight as she hugged him. Giles just stared over her head, his mouth falling open.

Jonathan nodded. "Yeah, that's right, and Buffy killed Warren."

"Fuck!"

Everyone turned around to see Faith, half up from the couch, still in her undershirt and police uniform trousers.

Jonathan beat Dawn with his question. "Hey, aren't you supposed to be dead?"

But the younger Summers wasn't far behind. "He shot you! I saw you on the ground!"

"Yeah, well…." The dark slayer shrugged, already moving, albeit gingerly, towards her boots. To Jonathan. "Which way'd she go?"

Giles found his voice. "Faith, I'm not sure that's such a good—"

At the same instant, Jonathan: "Which way who? Buffy or Willow?" He watched her start to put on one boot. "And you're not planning on going anywhere, are you? Because no offense, Mr. Giles, but I don't want a librarian as my last line of defense."

"Defense?" Faith and Giles at the same time.

"For when they come after me."


	55. Chapter 55

A/N: Trying here to make the writing evoke the scenes and would love any feedback on how that's working for y'all. As well as on the escalating drama, because, you know, that's where we're coming to!

* * *

"Come after you? Why would Buffy come after you? She's the one who sent you here, for crying out loud!" Dawn was scowling at him.

"Yeah, and she killed Warren!" He threw it right back in her face. Dawn hadn't registered it when he'd said it before. Had been focused instead on Faith's miraculous reappearance in the land of the living.

"No, that was—" But she stopped mid-sentence. The image of that beaten body with its bloody, torn-open throat pushed its way up from the recess she'd pushed it down to.

"And she bit Andrew!" Jonathan just kept going right over her interruption. For Dawn, the sight of her sister biting into Andrew's neck clicked into place with Warren and all the rest.

"No." It came out as a hoarse whisper this time. Same word that she'd used before, but meaning something else entirely.

Jonathan's voice reached its crescendo. "And excuse me if I don't trust someone with fangs and blood on their shirt!" A pause. "I'll also just note for the record that you didn't say anything about Willow _not_ coming after me."

Giles looked about as ill as the younger Summers and ushered both of them through the door, shutting it. "Dawn, perhaps you could tell us exactly what happened." He already had his glasses off, wiping at them.

It all came out in a confused rush. "I found Willow and she was there with Warren, who was all dead, and then she knocked me out. I woke to this scream, and found Spike's crypt and at first I didn't see anything but then in the bedroom there was Buffy and Spike and Andrew and she was biting him and—"

From Giles: "Wait, I thought it was _Buffy_ with Warren?"

From Faith: "What the fuck was B doin' in Spike's bedroom?"

From Xander, who was just walking down the stairs, wiping the sleep from his eyes. "I think I'm actually more confused now."

"And I staked Spike." Dawn was looking at Faith when she said it, seeing those brown eyes meet hers. The younger Summers' gaze skittered away then.

She had barely gotten it out when Xander had both of his hands lifted to the sky. "Thank _god_! That guy was a menace and—I'm just gonna come out and say it here—he had a very unhealthy attachment to our Buff."

But Faith's eyes were still there when Dawn's came back around, wide and glistening. And Faith's eyes said she got it. "Not the slayer you wanted to be." Faith saw the other girl duck her head, looking away.

"Has anyone in here _not_ killed people?" Jonathan still stayed near the door.

Xander started to raise his hand and then dropped it. "Right. Rhetorical." He straightened himself up. "Anyway, we're the best you got. And you're gonna need it because, hey, Will and magic? Let's just say things don't usually go as planned."

Giles looked over, his face softening at the young man's obvious desire to turn this into another misfire with sea anemones. "I'm not sure it's just a matter of planning this time."

Dawn was shaking her head vigorously. "Uh-uh. Black hair and…." She searched for the words. "…and maybe not, um, the biggest concern for others."

Faith watched the younger girl and wondered what lie behind some of those bruises. But Dawn was still talking.

"I think Buffy knocked her out, but once she wakes up…."

"Okay, fuck it, I'm goin' now." Faith made again for the door.

"What!? You can't leave me here!"

She leveled a look at the sputtering Jonathan. "Yeah, well, tough titties, evil boy."

"I am _not_ evil...I mean, not really."

Faith's mouth was a thin line. "Badness ain't really a for-your-convenience sorta gig."

"But we didn't really hurt—" His mouth was opening and closing like a fish's. He looked over to Xander, who was pointing at Faith with a finger like a gun, then pointing it at Jonathan. Jonathan decided to try a different tack. "And you didn't see Willow! She's like the Wicked Witch of the West Coast out—!"

Xander leapt to his friend's defense. "Will's not like that! She's just not thinking…she's hurting, and—!"

"I don't know, Xan, she really—" Dawn was scowling, remembering those fists coming down over and over on that body. On the body that her sister had savaged. Her sister. Whatever she had been about to say had been derailed.

Giles cut in, talking to the dark slayer who had never really been his charge. "Faith, now, I have to say—"

"Can it, G-man. I'm goin'." The dark slayer was already looking around for pants she didn't have to hold up with one fist. Under her breath: "Why'd I have to beat up a fuckin' donut pusher?" She started to move towards the stairs and then sucked in a big breath, her hand flying up involuntarily to the bandaging on her chest. She settled for delegation instead. "Gonna need a belt."

Giles stood where he was and tried again. "Faith, I'm not really sure that we can— I mean, I'll certainly try to contact the coven in London to see what help they can offer to control someone of Willow's talents, but I'm not sure—"

Xander gave it his own shot. "Faith, we need you here. From what you guys have said Willow's coming here. And we're going to need you to buy us some time to reason with her."

"Reason?" Jonathan snorted.

Faith looked between the three of them, then settled on the former watcher. "You know how to shield him from one a those locator spell thingies?" She hooked a thumb at Jonathan and saw Giles half nod. "Aight then. Unlist his number and you'll be alright, now won't you? Don't need me."

"But we do need—!" Jonathan's voice went up an octave.

"And I thought you weren't going to do this whole running away thing anymore?" Xander sounded hurt. "I thought you were past all that."

Faith was already ignoring both of them, halfway towards the door when Dawn scrambled back down the stairs and pressed a maroon wad and some tennis shoes at her.

The younger Summers' voice cracked a little. "They're Buffy's. Old Sunnydale gym sweat pants." She saw Faith look down at them and take them, balling them up in one hand. "She used to leave 'em here just in case she was ever training and…." She realized it really wasn't necessary to provide the whole explanation of things they used to do and gave it up. "Find her. Please. I don't want anyone else to…to get hurt."

The dark slayer held her eyes for a long moment, then ran her hand back though her hair and blew out a long breath. "Yeah, ain't so keen on that one either." And then she was out the door into the morning.

* * *

Faith tried Spike's crypt first, finding the tossed-aside sheets and some dust on the floor that might have been Spike. Or something else dead and gone. But probably Spike. She scuffed a toe of the trainers in it.

No Buffy in that bed.

Had she been there? Faith tried not to imagine her there in that dimly lit room, blonde hair splayed out over the pillow. Tried not to imagine it. And she had been in a cold hospital somewhere, stuck in surgery.

Her chest constricted a little, and she put her hand up to it. Then back out the door to look elsewhere.

* * *

The dark slayer was walking through yet another graveyard when she stumbled across Willow, kneeling on the grass in front of a gravestone. Buffy's gravestone. Eyes fixed on it, but not looking at what was cut in stone. There had been crying.

Faith raised an eyebrow, keeping a few feet in between her and the other girl. "Guess they just leave those things there even though…okay, well, maybe they don't know about the whole fucked-up resurrection thing."

And then the wave of energy steamrolled her and slammed her back into the hard trunk of a tree.

"_You_?! Why do _you_ get nine lives!?" The black-haired witch was there, glaring at her with wild eyes, raising her hand and lifting the dark slayer off the ground. For a second, Faith was held up in the air, an object for inspection.

Then the dark slayer reached out and caught a limb of the tree just as Willow moved to drop her to the ground. Released, she swung around on the branch, flailing at first, then pushing off the trunk with her feet and flipping to come to a crouch on top of that limb, looking down.

"What the fuck, Red!?" Faith, darkly, trying not to give away the fiery pain around the hole in her chest. Then, smirking: "Wait, guess I can't call you that anymore, now, can I?"

The other girl wasn't listening, but caught that familiar smirk. "You!" Her anger choking off any other word. "You!"

And then Faith was leaping out of the tree ahead of the electric bolt flashing her way, and slamming right down into the witch, knocking her back a few feet. "That the way you wanna play this?" A right hook. "'Cause I might be better at this game." Breathless.

"It's not a _game_!" That voice accusing, hurt. "_You_ get to be here, _you_ get to feel, _you_ get to wear those sweat pants like you didn't try to massacre the entire school!" Not even bothering to wipe away hot tears. The bruise on her cheek already starting to show.

"Says the girl standin' on the grave she dragged B out—."

Cut off by the chanted word and the outstretched hand and the wave of energy pushed ahead of it. And then "Fuck!" as she crashed into that same gravestone and felt it shake in its anchoring and felt the wind knocked out of her. A hand fluttering to her chest.

""She was supposed to be grateful!" The air crackling. Willow yelling now, advancing on her. "Nobody else could have done that for her!" The wind rising. "And now she tries to take even the last little things away from me all because Warren…." She spat the name. "…Warren hurt _you_. Hurt _you_!" Stopping to look at the intact Faith, vital enough to be out here fighting her. Not dead. "And you probably aren't even hurt, anyway!"

A flick of her wrist and Faith's thin white undershirt was ripped open from the middle, fluttering away to the ground, leaving the slayer crouching and pale and naked from the waist up, fingers pressing back down the edges of the bandage that had come free somewhere along the way.

And then Faith came up swinging, knocking the other girl back with a punch. "This what you fuckin' want to see, Red?" Cutting to the heart of it, landing another blow. "You wanna see me in pain? You wanna be the one to fuckin' cause pain around here?" Feeling the rumbling under her feet, but not paying any attention to it. Smirking again, glancing down at her naked chest. "Or maybe you just wanted to see—"

Knocked to the ground as the earth jerked underneath both of them.

"Shit!" Faith scrambling. The earth rolling like a wave.

The earth rolling and rolling and Faith couldn't gain her feet and Willow did, clinging to the tree next to her, her voice making a hoarse scream of "I don't want to see you! Not you! Not you!"

And then "Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you!" over and over again into the ruptured quiet of the earthquake, and Faith blinking because she didn't think she'd ever heard that word come out of Willow's mouth, and only had a bare moment to think that before the black eyes were blazing and there was a branch coming straight for her and all Faith could do was hit the dirt, feeling the ragged edges tear through her hair.

Rolling out of the way of the next missile coming her way, springing cat-like to her feet in time to grab a rock flying her way and turn around and launch it right back the way it had come.

Willow cried out as it caught her in the shoulder. The blue flame of electricity flickered and flared on her fingertips, and Faith knew it was going to hurt, could feel already an echo of the pain around that bullet hole that went straight through her.

And then it did hurt and she was sure she must have screamed into the ridiculously bright, cheerful sun, fingers crawling across the ground towards the thick branch lying there, having been given up by the tree to the witch's unfocused fury. And those fingers wrapped around its heft and she was heaving it at the source of that pain.

Just as suddenly as it started, it stopped.

Willow was curled on the ground, bleeding a little from a cut on her forehead.

Faith lifted her head just long enough to see that and then let it sink back down again into the cool grass.

* * *

"Miss? Um…miss?"

Faith was dimly aware of the hand on her shoulder, shaking her awake. She could feel the late afternoon sun on her back, hot like it had been there for a while. She turned over and felt the heat start in on the other side of her.

"Whoah! Hey…um."

Faith blinked one eye open to find a young man in a t-shirt and jogging shorts silhouetted against the sun. He was trying not to look down at her breasts, but since all that bandaging, now showing a little blood, was in the same vicinity….

"Got a cigarette?" Her voice sounded husky to her own ears.

He patted his shorts as if he might have forgotten whether he put a pack in one of the non-existent pockets. Then he looked around to see if there was anyone else he could get one from. Just the quiet graveyard. And a redheaded girl on her side under a tree. His brow furrowed at that, then turned back to Faith.

"Um…no. Sorry?" Then pointing at her chest. "Probably not too good for that anyway. Did you want me to call—?"

Faith rubbed a hand across her face, then back through her hair. "Whatever, Surgeon General." She started to sit up, wincing. "Shit." He started to help. She gave him an eyebrow that stopped him.

So he settled for talking instead. "Looks like it really hurts. You're lucky you're not dead or something, way out here like this."

She grimaced. "Yeah, I'm a fuckin' miracle." She was standing now. Looking over at Willow, feeling herself swaying a little on her feet.

He was looking where she was looking. "Should I call someone about her?"

"Not if you'd like to keep all your parts."

He pursed his lips at that. Barely hearing the next thing she said.

"Gonna need to borrow your shirt."

He looked over, trying to keep his eyes up on that pale face, the dark brown waves framing it, those even darker brown eyes that held him. "Yeah, um, not a problem. Just let me…." He pulled the shirt over his head and handed it to her. She took it and put it on. "You don't really have to give it back."

"Right." She was already limping with his shirt back towards Giles' house.

* * *

"Faith! Did you find Buffy? Willow? My goodness, are you—!?!"

She was letting the doorframe hold her up as Giles nearly pulled the front door off its hinges yanking it open. He took her in, from the grass stained maroon sweats to the gray t-shirt, furrowing at the last one.

Xander asked the question for him, poking his head around. "Didn't you leave in something…?"

She walked slowly inside. "Yeah, well, Red kinda forced a change."

Jonathan jumped up off the couch. "Willow's still out there? I thought you guys were going to be able to protect me!"

Giles ignored him. "Is she with you?" Looking past Faith into the light of the setting sun.

"Not unless I'm losing my touch with my punches."

"You hit her!" and "Did she come after you, too?" at the same time from Xander and then Dawn.

"Hit her? Check. Self-defense? Check." She blew out a long breath. "And earthquakes and Willow? Kinda goin' together these days."

"That was—? Oh, dear." Giles was already moving over to his books.

Xander's brow was scrunched up. "Why would she—? Wait, didn't you tell her about Tara?"

"Didn't really give me a chance."

"Faith! You didn't tell her!?!"

But it was Dawn that met his yell with her own. "Xander! Leave her alone! Can't you see she's hurt?" The younger Summers helped the slayer towards the stairs and the ever-ready first aid kit upstairs. She barely heard Dawn's quiet question. "You didn't find her?"

"Not so much." They trudged up the stairs together.

* * *

Down in the living room, Jonathan was still pacing, frantic. "Wait, so she doesn't know that Tara's alive! She still thinks she's dead and I'm involved and I am so screwed!" To Giles: "You really think books are going to help with this?"

The Englishman kept flipping. "The connection between Willow's demonstrations of her power and earthquakes may mean something larger—"

"Something larger than me with several thousand volts running through? Excuse me if I don't really care."

The older man sighed, still not looking up. "You may be a convenient target for her anger, Jonathan, but the more she taps into this uncontained, raw emotion, the more we are all at risk. You are aware of the Hellmouth here?"

"Right. The explanation for why high school sucked."

Xander had joined Giles next to the books for the old familiar routine. "Yeah, but it sure sucked a lot less because of Buffy and Willow and—"

"—and ohmygod there she is!"

Xander's head jerked up at the Jonathan's cry, saw him looking through the small window next to the door and ran over to fling the door open.

In the background, Jonathan. "Don't open it! Who does that!?! Didn't I just say—!?!"

But all Xander could say was "Buffy?" and see the blonde who had been watching from the shadows across the courtyard look startled back at him and then flinch and start to turn to go.

"My god, Buffy" from Giles and she hesitated, bruised, wet jeans clinging to her legs, the whiteness of her sweater now a ripped and bloody, muddy mess. Large eyes. Legs taking her towards that safe place in spite of every impulse to run away from what they would say.

She was almost at the door, looking in. Faith had dashed down the stairs at the tingle in her spine and stood there looking out.

Buffy's face slack for a moment at the sight of her, shaking her head as if to clear away the cruel hallucination.

But when she blinked those green eyes back open, Faith was still there, talking to her.

"B?"

Buffy took a step and slammed right into the barrier that told her she was not welcome inside. Brow furrowing as her hand reached out to feel that block.

And then a yell of "Back, vampire, back!" as Jonathan charged across the room, waving a cross wildly in front of him until he was clothes-lined by Faith who looked down at him in disgust and then back up to see Buffy's wild eyes taking in Jonathan and his cross protesting from the floor that she'd killed Warren over and over.

So she ran.


	56. Chapter 56

A/N: A longer one to keep you busy! Thanks in advance for your feedback!

* * *

"B! Shit!" But the blonde was gone into the evening. The image of her, pale and beautiful, burned into the back of Faith's retinas. The dark slayer whirled around to see Giles and Xander behind her, Jonathan still on the floor. "Why the fuck didn't anybody invite her in!?!"

"You could have done it, too!" Xander yelled right back.

"Yeah, maybe I woulda if I hadn't been tryin' to stop Van Helsing here!"

Jonathan scrambled to pick himself up off the floor, still clutching his impotent cross like he half wanted to wave it at Faith. "She's a vampire! You're a vampire slayer! She was right in front of you and you weren't doing anything! She was coming after me!"

Giles rolled his eyes. "She wasn't any more coming after—"

"There was menace! In her eyes! Menace!"

Xander's turn to roll his eyes. "Oh, for god's sake, shut the—"

Dawn cut in, charging across the room from where she'd seen it all at the bottom of the stairs. "Well, you guys can just sit around snipping at each other all you want, but I'm going to go after her!" She grabbed a jacket and was almost to the door.

There was a "fuck this" and then Faith was following right at her heels, hurrying for the darkness outside. And then nearly collapsing at the pain.

"Hey!" Xander reached out to catch her, but she caught herself with white knuckles gripping the edge of the entryway table. It shook on its flimsy legs under her weight. Dawn hesitated, looking back.

Giles rushed towards Faith. "You shouldn't—"

Through gritted teeth, but her eyes were open now. "Lotta fuckin' things I shouldn't, but goin' out that door is a definite should."

Dawn was looking between the door and the slayer. Every moment Buffy was disappearing further away. "Faith, I've got to…we've got to…." She trailed off, cocking her head a little at her sister's lover, then looking out after Buffy.

Faith was taking deep breaths, nodding firmly once, then twice, those dark waves falling down around her face. "Aspirin. Vicodin. Hammer to the head. I know you got some shit, G-man."

"Faith, really. The gunshot wound. Your most recent fight. You don't even know what exactly is waiting for you out there." Giles was good at ticking reasons off lists. But Faith had those brown eyes trained on his and her hand was out, palm up and open. The Englishman's shoulders slumped and he trudged to the kitchen and back, shaking out a few pills from a bottle into her hand. She tossed them in her mouth and threw her head back. Then grabbed the bottle, shook out four more, tossed those back, and stuck the rest in Dawn's jacket pocket.

"Okay. I'm set."

Giles kept trying. "And there's the police. You've already tempted the fates once by going out. They're sure to be—"

"That's what I got Dawn for. Don't tell me a Summers couldn't talk or pout her way outta just about anything."

He went on, undeterred. "And then there's Willow, who may well be destablizing the very Hellmouth with her magic. Not to mention attracting lord knows what sort of demons by her show of—"

Xander cut in, smacking his forehead. "Shit…Will! Somebody's gotta tell her about Tara!" And then he was heading for the door himself, and would have pushed Faith and Dawn aside, had they not taken that opportunity to cut Giles' lecture short and head out into the night themselves.

The older man could see he wasn't going to win this one, calling after them. "Well, do you at least have some sort of weaponry?" Xander shook his head. Faith held up a fist in the air. But Giles was still talking. "Maybe for you, but Dawn…." Faith turned to catch the stake he tossed after the two of them. She looked at it, looked at Dawn, and then stuck it in her own waistband, against the small of her back.

And then Giles was left with Jonathan, looking out on a dark, empty courtyard.

Jonathan picked at the zipper of his jacket. "What do you think the odds are that Willow knows where I am?"

"Well, it's not just about you anymore, now is it?" And Giles hefted the volume of _Magicks_ into the young man's hands, pointing at the desk.

* * *

The sound of fist hitting flesh.

"Okay, whoever invited you guys, I hereby revoke it. That's it. Cease and desist."

The crunch of boot in gravel, pivoting for a kick. "No more." Punch. "Room." Punch. "At the inn."

Another muted thwack followed by resounding roar in response.

"So sorry."

And then Faith and Dawn rounded the corner at a run to finally see what they'd been hearing.

"Buffy!" Dawn's cry rang out into the alleyway, and instantly five pairs of demon eyes were on her. Only one of them was her sister's.

"Dawn!" The blonde barely had time to get it out before one of the demons next to her was starting in the younger girl's direction. She lunged after it to grab it by the shoulder and send it spinning around into her fist. And then she was occupied by two others who were trying a tactic that involved each of them grabbing an arm and pulling. In different directions.

Faith stepped forward, in front of Dawn, and glanced back over her shoulder to make sure the girl was staying there before she dove in.

Dawn could only roll her eyes. "Okay, Ms. Walking Wounded, I think I'm just a little more—aagh!" She flinched back as a demon rushed towards her. Faith sent him reeling back with a kick. Dawn grabbed the stake out of the wincing slayer's waistband.

Faith felt its secure pressure gone. "D, these ain't vamps."

"Um, duh. Haven't seen too many big, green, scaly vamps lately." She gripped the weapon. "But that doesn't mean pointy plus jabbing doesn't still equal painful." She drove her point home as she dodged a meaty arm coming in her direction and sank the sharp end into demon flesh. It roared and the stake stuck in its arm, and the demon flung its arm, the stake, and, because Dawn's hand was still attached to it, Dawn herself against the side of a building.

"Dawn!" Buffy's cry this time ringing out. Baring her teeth at the two still pulling at her. "Okay, that's enough with the drawing and quartering, thank you." She swung her arms together, forcing a demon collision right in front of her.

"Not sure you can call it quarterin', B. More like halvin'." Faith had by the neck the one that had attacked Dawn. She glanced over at the other slayer to try out a grin, but, in that instant of inattention, took a blow to her stomach that sent her to her knees, doubled over with a groan.

"Faith!" Buffy's ears pricked at the groan, so eerily familiar. "Faith! No! Dawn!" Both of those she loved, in the street, one crumpled, one just now rising, and still four demons threatening all of them. "You shouldn't be here! Go!"

The dark slayer looked up and found green eyes on her, green eyes holding in their depths their own pain and guilt and darkness. To Faith, it was almost a mirror. She held it up and looked into it and looked right back into Buffy's eyes so that the other girl could see her as well. "Not goin', B."

At that moment, Faith gritted her teeth and stood and found herself a demon. She put her hands on both sides of its head, twisted, and snapped its neck. A killer herself.

Dawn chimed in, oblivious to the looks passed between the slayers, dodging a demon that came running at her so that it ran headfirst into the wall behind her instead and was stunned. "Buffy, Faith's supposed to be here. Killing demons is kind of a calling."

Faith looked over at the younger Summers. Of course, she didn't see her sister as a demon. "I'm thinkin' big sis gets that."

Buffy was working on her own demons, flashing out with the heel of her hand that jammed one demon's nose straight up into its skull. It staggered back, some bone pressed up now into the soft of its brain. "Right. Killing's my calling and death is my gift…." A cry snapped her head up from the crumpling demon and she saw Faith pressed against the wall, fighting back with one hand while the other shielded her chest. The blonde slayer reached out for one of its ears and yanked, spinning it around to face her. It came with a punch, and several spikes on the ridge of its knuckles. She fought back her own cry and gritted out over her shoulder. "And these things can't hurt _me_. Please. Just go."

But Faith was already pushing herself, pale and shaking, off the wall, seeing Buffy's white sweater—the lightest thing in the alleyway—step to keep itself between the demons and Faith and Dawn. "Oh no you don't. Don't pull that martyr shit. Don't pull that Chosen One shit on me. You're not the only one anymore."

"Don't you get it, Faith, I'm not chosen! I'm not anything!" She was fighting and crying in a frenzy of fangs and blows. "I killed him!"

The dark slayer reached for the stake out of Dawn's hand, turned, and threw it at one demon. The wood lodged in its chest. It howled. "Didn't say you didn't."

"Faith!" Dawn pulled the other girl back by the arm, looking anxiously over at her sister, at the fangs bared as she fought. "Faith, you're not helping!"

"Sure doesn't help to pretend it didn't happen either." Just as adamant, right back at the younger girl. And then turning to Buffy, watching the blonde move in for the kill on the weakened demon, watching that figure she knew so well, the play of shoulder muscles revealed where the sweater had been ripped aside. "Somebody told me that." Faith saw her stiffen a little, still not turning around. "Somebody told me that it happens and you gotta face it and you can't run away from it. That you gotta talk about it."

Green eyes finally found brown over the downed body of another demon. One left, snarling.

Buffy, talking around her punches. Halting fragments: "I shouldn't have. I didn't have to. I thought…you…he shot you…how can you be—? When I killed him?"

Dawn, pleading. "But you were just trying to protect—"

"I wasn't _protecting_ anybody then." A muffled grunt as the demon's fist snapped her head back and left her staggering, shaking her head to clear it.

Dawn, still. "But it was Faith! You love her!"

The blonde slayer recovered her footing, eyes red-rimmed as she spun into a roundhouse that sent the demon back, following it, pressing her advantage, arm across its throat. Her own voice hoarse. "Does that mean I can kill a person?" Finding Faith's eyes again, those lips she wanted nothing more than to drown in. "Because I love her?" Her one arm slowly crushing that soft throat, her other hand holding one demon fist away from her. Leaving the other demon hand to claw at her ribs, over and over in fear for its life, ripping the sweater open on that side as well. The blonde glancing to catch Dawn's eyes. "Because I love you, too?"

Faith was there, grunting a little as she pulled that other clawing hand away, pinning it against the brick. And then saw the demon's eyes realize that the slayers in front of it were going to win. "Done is done, B. Is what it is."

"But what if I—?"

"Gotta deal with the shades of gray as they come."

And then the demon had gone limp, sliding now down the wall, and Buffy was collapsing into Faith's arms, and Faith was collapsing back into the wall for support, and they were all holding each other up.

"I wanna go home."

"Yeah, B, we can do that."

* * *

The three of them limped up the walk of that quiet Revelo street home. Quiet, dark cars in the street.

"Think that sweater's a goner, B." Faith squeezed the other girl's hand slightly. Buffy had grabbed it earlier and hadn't yet let go. A constant reminder of the other slayer's presence, always cooler than her own hand.

Buffy looked down at the formerly white garment, now rent asunder at the neck and down one side. Her pale skin shone in the moonlight. Claw marks on one side marked each rib with a slice of red. "Good thing it wasn't my favorite." Her brow furrowed, looking over at Faith. "And are you wearing my gym sweats?"

"Had a pant issue comin' outta the hospital." Don't ask, don't tell.

"Buffy, I'm not sure you should be throwing stones at somebody else's pants. Yours are kinda gross. They're all wet…and what is that?" Dawn was wrinkling her nose at dark splotches on them as she fished for the key under a potted plant.

Buffy scrunched up her own face to match, feeling the wet denim clinging to her thighs. "I know. That bunch of demons back there wasn't the first of them I've seen. There was another group of them earlier, along with some others I hadn't seen before either." Seeing Faith's eyebrow. "Buy one demon, get five free. Anyway, long story short, there was fighting and sewer water, and unintentional mixing of the two."

"Oh…ew." Dawn looked back as the opened the door, taking care not to brush against those jeans. "You were in the sewer?"

"Little bright outside for me, Dawn." She started in after her sister, but stopped when she felt Faith not moving behind her. She turned to see the dark slayer watching the evening behind them. "Faith?" Buffy stepped back next to her, her shoulder touching the brunette's shoulder, their fingers still entwined.

"S'nothin'. Just felt like we were bein' watched."

Both slayers looked out into the dusky light together, but nothing was stirring and the only tremors they felt signaled their own presence on each other's radar. Faith shrugged and looked over to find Buffy watching her.

"Y'okay?"

Buffy ran her hand underneath Faith's shirt, resting it softly against one side of Faith's ribs. "I should be asking you that." She knit her brow, staring at the place where that bullet had gone in. She slid her hand around to Faith's chest, fingers brushing over the rough edges of bandaging. When she spoke again, her voice was soft, halting. "Are you…are you really here?"

"Yeah." Faith closed her eyes at the cool touch. To think she could have been so stupid—even after the hospital and the handcuffs and the cop—to walk away from this. Not even thinking, walk away from this. "Yeah, I'm here." Even she was amazed.

Dawn's voice cut in from inside. "If y'all are gonna stand outside all day, then I'm gonna get first shower."

Faith's eyes blinked open to see her lover's forehead furrow at the interruption. She leaned around Buffy to yell into the house. "Oh no, you ain't. Sewer girl gets priority, and I gotta come with make sure she doesn't slip or somethin'."

"Oh, you guys are gonna totally use up all the hot water!" And she was running up stairs to the hall bathroom. Buffy and Faith looked at each other, then, hurrying within the limitations of their injuries, made their own way to the downstairs shower.

Faith was already trying to shrug her way out of the t-shirt, by the time Buffy had shut the door behind them.

"Please. Let me." Cool fingers lifted the hem for her, exposing that taut midriff and the fraying bandaging above it, tossing the t-shirt aside. Her fingers skated just above Faith's skin. "Does it hurt?"

"Big sucking chest wound—literally. But Giles gave me some shit." She peeled back one edge of the adhesive slowly, then all at once ripping it away. "And slayer healin' does its thing." They both looked down the puckered wound. "Don't look like much, does it?"

"So small." Buffy's entranced finger drew a large circle around it.

"From what I heard the doctors say it was the bouncin' around inside that caused the damage. So I guess it's the inside that hurts."

"I…." Buffy stopped, biting at her lip, then starting again. "I'm afraid to touch you…I don't want to hurt you." She didn't want to touch her and find that she wasn't real, either.

Faith took her hand and placed it lightly on the wound itself, watching the other girl's eyes for a moment. Then her mouth slipped into a grin and she moved the hand over onto her breast. She arched an eyebrow down at the hand as if she had no idea how it had gotten there. "Man, B. In sickness and in health, huh?"

Buffy's matched the eyebrow with her own, feeling those familiar tensing muscles. Her thumb brushed across Faith's nipple. "Oh, you'd rather I didn't? Cause, you know, if you're not feeling up to it…."

Faith reached out to take a belt loop on the other slayer's jeans and use it to pull her close, jamming their hips together. The corner of her mouth twitched upwards and Buffy's stifled groan. "Says the girl with the easy-access sweater."

"Okay, so not my fault." Prying Faith's fingers from the belt loop. "And you know where these pants have been, so why don't you just make sure the water's all good and hot while I…." She motioned for Faith to go ahead and peeled the jeans down, throwing them into a wad in the corner. Looking up, she found Faith naked in the shower, watching her through the glass. "You are so beautiful." And both of them knew it wasn't a joke or banter or a thing to say. It was just Buffy, standing still in the bathroom, hands frozen in the process of taking of what was left of her sweater, acknowledging what was right in front of her. And then her hands were moving again, peeling aside that garment and the pink bra underneath, her mouth grinning again and Faith, in more familiar territory now, grinning back as Buffy went on. "But my sweats? Not really your style."

"They don't make them in leather."

"Which is probably better for sweats, all around." The blonde slayer was stepping out of the matching pink lace so that what had been ivory and pink a moment before was naked ivory now, stepping into the steam with Faith.

"Like you better outta your sweats, too."

"I wasn't wearing them, Faith." Buffy leaned into the hands that had her by the hips, smiling at the vision in front of her.

"Just sayin'. Naked's good on you."

"Well, that works out then." Her own hands roaming, determined to learn this body again, starting over, inch by inch. The undercurve of each breast, that notch at the base of her throat. Gazing up to hold those brown eyes with her own, closing her own only at the last moment as she leaned in to find those full lips with her own, feeling the lips part and Faith's tongue in her mouth, the kiss making up for lost time and time regained. Feeling Faith tasting her and feeling her own groan as she melted her body against Faith's and thought that it was like she had never kissed anyone before. This first time.

Buffy's hands circling those breasts now on their own. The hard nipples brushing against her own. The condensation and water making their bodies slip against each other. It was the water and it was them. Faith pressed a thigh in between Buffy's legs and groaned herself as the other girl parted for her and started a rhythm against her, along that thigh. Faith's hands reached to cup Buffy's ass, bringing that sex closer to her, feeling Buffy's own leg pressing into her. And then the blonde's mouth was on her breast, grazing sharp teeth across that swell, pulling a nipple between her lips then letting go, flicking her tongue instead so that Faith jumped, and the thigh that was pressed into Buffy pressed harder and Buffy could only whisper and "oh god. Faith!" right into Faith's skin. Buffy's hips moving of their own volition now. Her hand sliding down between them to find that hot slit that was burning into her thigh, and slip into those folds, circling that sensitive nub so that she could hear Faith's cry as she gripped Buffy harder, and hear her own cry as she felt that slick heat. She slipped two fingers inside, working Faith's clit with her thumb, feeling the other girl's buck pressing her deeper and the walls clenching to hold her.

Until Faith was touching her, too—like lightning to the brain, that first touch. And Faith couldn't follow any rhythm but the one that was already drawing her along to a fever pitch. The flashing lights in her own head, Buffy's lips capturing her own, sucking the lower one, fingers pumping in and out, the sharp inhale as fangs sunk into her shoulder and "oh god, Buffy, fuck yes!" Buffy coming at that cry and the full name, and Faith coming at the feel of Buffy clenching around her and whispering "I love you, I love you" over and over into her ear.

* * *

"You don't want to do that."

Willow turned from what she was watching: the two slayers curled together on the couch, visible through the front window, Faith leaning back into Buffy, who had her arms around her, fingers looping and playing with those long dark locks. Willow turned, some flares of bluish electricity still arcing between her fingers. Somewhere not too far off, sirens.

Xander was behind her, eyes skittering between those black eyes and the blue and the picture of the slayers across the street.

"You don't know what I want to do." Her voice nearly flat.

"Well, I know you don't want to do that." He didn't know that, didn't even know whether she knew the charge she was holding in ready, but it had to be true. "Will, Tara's alive."

For a moment there was nothing, not even a breath from either of them. Just the wail of sirens coming closer. Willow's eyes wide, fixed on him, wanting to believe. Her voice cracking at the edges. "Tara isn't—? She's not dead?" Like the pop of an air pressure change. "She's still—" A smile breaking, her face transforming into that giddy girl Xander had once known. "Tara's still alive!" Throwing her arms around Xander, squeezing him so hard he could only look down and smile and hold her.

"Technically, she's still in a coma, but, yeah, she's alive and—"

"Ohmygod, how? Wait, no…where comes first!"

"Well, Anya's with her and—"

But he wasn't getting it out fast enough for her, so she stepped inside his head to find it there. As if she reached her hand into a sock, turned it inside out, and pulled the image out of the toe, exposing it for her to see. And, frozen, he could see it, too, his thoughts now a thing outside himself. Cold white tile, beeping, Tara amid those white sheets.

And then the whole street was lit up, police cars screaming around the corner, heading straight for them with lights flashing. Six cars. Sirens. A SWAT van screeching to the curb in front of Buffy's house. Officers piling out. Men swinging open doors from one of the dark cars on the street, from where they'd been watching, pointing the officers to the house, to Buffy and Faith's alarmed faces in the window.

"Will…!" But Xander couldn't move with the witch in his mind. "Buffy! Police!"

Willow didn't hear him as she focused instead on the face of her lover, serene. Tara's chest moving with breaths and life in spite of the medical apparatus around her. "Tara…."

In the background. "Faith, we know you're in there! Come out slowly with your hands up."

Through the window, the dark slayer's face wavering between horror and the easy slide to anger. Fists clenched. Her mouth making the words "no fuckin' way" over and over. Buffy vamped, reflexively baring her teeth at the threat. Dawn yelling "they've got guns!"

"Will!" Xander's words weren't getting through.

"Tara!"

Then, for Xander, it was as if he was stepping into his own mind, pulling through the vortex of thought, traveling into space as the world shimmered around him, until, with a loud crack, he and Willow landed in the hospital room next to Tara and he could finally speak.

"What the hell just—!" He had to stop to turn and throw up in a nearby garbage can.

And back where he'd been just moments before, the tense standoff, the bullhorn full of instructions and cautions of no sudden movements, which is just what Buffy and Faith and Dawn inside were bracing to do, like animals caught. Back there, the flash of light of Xander and Willow's departure, the crack in space that jolted the fault underneath them and caused it to slip plate against plate, dropping everyone there to the ground like so many toppling playthings. Buffy and Faith and Dawn diving away from the window as it shattered. The porch seeming to go one way while the house went another. Chunks of plaster falling, dishes crashing out of shelves as the house shifted and tilted. All of them leaping out the back door to throw themselves flat on the grass for a moment and feel the earth itself shaking. The sirens still going out front. Yelling. A gun that had accidentally gone off, someone's finger too close to the trigger.

And Buffy and Faith were running, pushing Dawn over the fence ahead of them, disappearing into the darkness before the shouting behind them could resolve itself into a search.


	57. Chapter 57

A/N: Officially longest chapter ever, for y'all! Thank you so much for the reviews! They mean so much...really! Hope you enjoy!

* * *

"Jiminy! Are people dropping out of the sky now? Is this a thing?"

Xander looked up, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. "An, a towel would be helpful."

"Am I supposed to clean that up?" She wrinkled her nose at the little puddle of vomit on the floor. "Because I think there are people here who are more accustomed to cleaning bodily fluids than I am." She looked out towards the hallway, where people were rushing and machines were beeping. She started to flag someone.

"How about we just start with a towel?"

"Oh, right." She yanked one out of the dispenser and handed it over.

Behind them: "Tara? Tara, baby, wake up."

"Will, I think she's in a—" Xander was moving over to rest his hand on his friend's shoulder when the blonde blinked her eyes open and spoke.

"Willow? Where—?"

Xander did a double-take. "Wow, that's like a miracle or something!" Turning to Anya to point back at the two witches. "Did you see Will just wake Tara from a freaking coma?"

Willow's eyes lit up as she took the other girl's hand in her own. "It's okay, sweetie!" Smoothing Tara's hair back from her face. "You were in a coma, but I—"

"Actually, she came out of it a few hours ago. That was just normal, drug- and trauma-induced sleep."

Xander and Willow both looked at Anya for a moment. Willow pressed her lips together briefly, but then smiled widely down at Tara.

The young man clapped his hands together. "Alrighty. Dialing down the miracle, then." Then he was smiling, too, and holding onto Tara's other hand. "Really great to see you awake, anyway you get there!" She glanced over at him, giving a sleepy smile before turning back to Willow, who was still talking.

"I can't believe you're here and I'm here, because there was that bullet, I'm pretty sure, and I thought, well, what anyone would think when there's a bullet involved, but now you're here and alive and coma-free!"

Tara's brow furrowed as she tried to follow the rush of words.

Xander squeezed her hand. "See, it's your Willow, complete with babbling package and everything."

"But your hair…." Tara's hand reached up to take a few black strands between her fingers.

Willow's eyes went wide and she backed up a step, placing a hand to that hair herself. "My hair? What's wrong with—?" She turned to Xander for help and he mouthed the word "black" back to her. Her eyes went even wider. "But I don't know why it would be—"

"Maybe because you teleported in here like something out of—"

Tara's eyebrows climbed up her forehead as she looked quickly from Anya to Willow. "Teleported?"

But before she could ask her question, a nurse rushed through the door. "Everyone alright in here?" They all just stared at her. "The earthquake?" She was already over next to the various machines monitoring Tara's vitals. "We're on backup power right now and doesn't seem to be too much damage in this wing, but we got some major damage in other parts." A pause. "Supposed to be a lot of ambulances comin' this way."

"Earthquake?" From Xander and Willow and Tara all at once, looking between the nurse and Anya.

Anya just shrugged. "I was going to mention it, but then you guys just—" She caught Xander's significant eyebrow raise and glance in the nurse's direction. "Arrived here. So suddenly."

The nurse was just looking at all of them. "Sure. Don't tell me you guys didn't feel it? Somethin' hinky goin' on with the Sunnydale fault is all I can say." She gave them an apologetic smile. "Look, I gotta go check on everybody else, but I'm supposed to be gettin' the visitors out, too. Gonna be too many people in here. And they're worried about liability, you know…. I'll give you a few minutes, but then you've got to go." And then, as quickly as she had come, she rushed back at the door into the busy hallway.

For a moment, they all could only stare at where she'd been.

Then Tara spoke, looking into her lover's dark eyes. "Willow?"

The witch's eyes skittered away from Tara's questioning ones. Her fingers still fiddled, self-consciously, with the black ends of her hair. "But I don't know…I don't see…it wasn't really…." She trailed off, watching Tara's eyes on her. Willow bit her lip, wanting to reach out and touch her. But then she remembered Warren and Andrew and Dawn flung back into the tree and Buffy's wide eyes fluttering shut as the energy had touched her forehead. And, with a small cry, her hand hovered over her mouth. Trying to hold it together, she grabbed Xander's arm and leaned in to kiss Tara quickly. "The nurse said, that we've got to, you know…. But we'll be back, I promise, baby!" Then she was dragging Xander with her.

"Will, are you sure we should be—?" He had his thumb pointed back at Tara, who was watching them go, brow furrowed. But Willow was pulling him and Anya was following out into the chaos of the hallway.

* * *

"Is everyone okay?"

There were sirens all over now. Faith jumped at every wail. They were standing under a tree in someone's back yard. The slayers were barefoot, in jeans now, Faith wearing a thin white undershirt, Buffy a black tank top. Their damp hair was drying fast into wild waves.

"Was that…?" Dawn was looking back over her shoulder at her house in the distance. She could see the roof, slanted now. "Ohmygod, our house! Was that an earthquake?" Buffy was also looking back at where they'd just come from, green eyes longing for that familiar place.

The blonde's fangs were still visible through her parted lips when she spoke, whispering. "That was mom's house." Her eyes were wide.

Then there was the crackle of a bullhorn from the street in front of the house, and Faith rocketed off the trunk she'd been leaning against.

Buffy jumped herself. "Faith!" Then: "Wait!" And the blonde was running after her. With a "hey!" Dawn tried to keep up with both of them. Up over the fence and into the cemetery behind the subdivision. They could see lights bobbing in the distance and Faith ducked into a mausoleum. Buffy took up a defensive posture just inside the door, muscles tense underneath that porcelain skin, head swiveling quickly between the sounds outside and the tense slayer next to her.

Dawn leaned, gasping, back against door. "What the heck is going on around here!? What are we running from now?" She was still gulping down air, rolling their eyes at the slayers hardly breathing fast at all. Or not breathing at all, as the case may be. But it was hard to tell which slayer was more keyed up.

"Police." Faith bit it out, chewing on the edge of one ragged nail. She ignored the pain in her chest.

Dawn stared at the dark slayer. "Why them? Why now, of all times? It's not like you haven't been here for weeks!" Her mind flashed back to what she'd seen out the front window when she came barreling down the stairs. "And was that the freaking SWAT team outside our house?"

Now Buffy was looking, too. Faith pressed those dark lips together. Her body hummed from where she'd been leaning back into Buffy, before that moment had been ripped away. She looked away from both of them.

"Kinda roughed up some cops at the hospital 'fore I got out."

Dawn threw up her hands. "Oh for crying out—! Faith! You can't beat up police officers! You're on the good side now! Buffy, tell her!"

The blonde looked from her sister to her lover, seeing Faith's jaw set in preparation for whatever she expected to come out of Buffy's mouth. Buffy had seen her look that way before and furrowed her brow at the step backwards. "Faith, I know…when I saw them—" But those brown eyes weren't on her anymore to see the blonde remembering how she had bared her teeth when she saw those uniforms threatening to storm the house, to take Faith. Buffy turned back to her sister. "Dawn, I don't really think I can say—"

But then the ground shook again, knocking the younger Summers to her knees. The slayers managed to keep their feet, each flinging out a reflexive arm towards the other. Their hands met in the middle and held on as the rolling sent them both careening into a tomb. A plume of masonry dust filled the room. Dislodged pebbles skittered across the floor.

"What the fuck!" Before it was even out of Faith's mouth, Buffy had already thrown the mausoleum door open again and was looking out into the chaos of the night. There were more sirens now, the glow of fires. "B! For crissakes, shut the goddamned door!"

"Faith, we've got to get out of here! You don't think anyone retrofits crypts, do you?" The blonde slayer held a hand out to Dawn and Faith, and then turned to look out into the night, filled now with sounds and people and frantic lights. "And I think the police have bigger things to deal with right now."

There were screams out there. Every one of Buffy's already hyped senses prickled, and she ran towards the sound, drawn to the distress, hearing the other slayer's footsteps behind her.

Dawn was yelling: "For crying out loud! Will you people quit with the running already!" And then, at Faith's glance, she had no choice but to go after them.

* * *

When Giles flung the door open this time, it was Willow and Xander and Anya. The latter stepped around him as he just stood there, staring at the black-haired girl in front of him.

"Willow? Good lord!"

From behind him. "Aagh! What are you doing? Shut the door, shut the door!" Jonathan was backing up, trying to fumble his way through some half-remembered incantation.

Xander rushed across the room, clamping his hand over the other boy's mouth. "Can it, you! The last thing we need is more magic around here."

"But she…Andrew…!" It came out muffled from underneath the hand.

"She's not going to hurt you." Xander turned to arch an eyebrow at the witch. "Are you, Will?"

Willow's head turned quickly between the boy who was still trying to back away from her and the father figure standing in front of her.

"Willow? Thank goodness Xander was able to—. I presume you—? Tara?" Giles was still having a hard time getting full sentences out.

And then the floodgates opened and Willow was sobbing. "Giles, what am I going to do? I can't look at her without thinking that somebody's going to tell her what I did or she'll be able to tell somehow and then she'll never want to be with me again and I didn't mean to, it just…Andrew was there and…."

"You fucking electrocuted him!" Xander had dropped his hand off of Jonathan's mouth, but immediately clapped it back on.

Anya wrapped a hand around her husband's arm and pressed into his side, whispering. "I don't think you should teleport with her anymore."

"Tele-what?" Giles had heard it anyway and his eyebrows were up around his hairline.

Willow's voice hovered around the octave of hysteria. "I didn't mean to! I just thought it and it—" And then she was thrown sideways into the door jam as another tremor rolled through the Sunnydale fault.

Anya yelped, grabbing Xander with both hands now and dragging him down to the ground. "Aftershock! Everyone under your desks!"

"An, we don't have any desks and this isn't an atomic bomb, this is just—" Xander's voice was raised above the rattling of the dishes in their cabinets.

"How do you know it isn't? What if Willow can just poof one of those?"

"Honey, I don't think Willow can just summon up Fat Man out of thin—" Xander was staring at Giles, whose face had gone as white as his knuckles where he gripped the doorframe. The Englishman was staring at Willow, at the blueish glow that danced around her fingertips. "Or maybe she can?"

Giles finally found his voice. "Willow, I think you might be…I think your magic is affecting the fault." A pause. "And lord knows what else."

* * *

The Chosen One came out the gates of the cemetery and down the tree-lined street within sight of Giles'. And there was a pack of five vampires that close. Vampires taking advantage of a family that had fled the danger of the earthquake only to encounter another far-worse danger outside. One vampire had a man by the throat, roughly drinking while another laughed next to him, holding the screaming wife at bay as she batted at his head. Two others had a child between them, tugging it back and forth as they argued whose turn it was this time. The fifth demon had a young woman by the arm, pulling her one way while she pulled another, yelling.

The blonde slayer's fangs had never receded from earlier. Now her whole face shifted as she sprinted to them.

The nearest vampire looked up as she arrived, a big bloody grin greeting her own demon visage. "Isn't this great? It's like a Hellmouth buffet!"

Buffy broke a branch off the tree next to her and stuck it through his heart.

The other vampires stared at the settling dust, open-mouthed. "Hey, you can't do that! You're a—"

But then the young woman who had been held by the no-longer-corporeal vampire stepped up and managed a wild punch on Buffy's unsuspecting jaw.

"Hey!" The blonde slayer growled, taking the source of that punch by her shoulders and whirling her around to press her back against a tree trunk, bodies flush. She could feel the girl breathing heavily, the thump of her heartbeat, that slim body writhing between her and the tree. Brown eyes, full lips. She felt her own body reacting. The blood just under the skin of that neck.

"So, what, it takes two of you motherfuckers to deal with one kid?"

At Faith's husky drawl interrogating the vampires to her left, Buffy blinked and saw the girl in front of her for what she was: 19 and trying to look tough and scared. Of her. She jumped back and looked around for something she could do with all her pent-up energy. Faith was already going gung-ho on her two, so she took the vampire that had the father in hand, wrapping an arm around his neck to haul him back.

The blood on his mouth got on her knuckles went she hit him with a vicious cross. He went down and she followed with her stake, driving it home as he dissipated under her, dropping her onto the dewy grass. Eyes glittering, she looked around for more.

Faith caught that glance with her own excited one, raising an eyebrow as she dusted one vampire and nodded her head in the direction of the girl who had punched Buffy. The blonde shook her head quickly and gratefully took the vampire the dark slayer swung over her way, meeting him with a roundhouse that snapped his head to one side.

Faith snickered, turning back to her other vampire only to find that Dawn had stepped in and launched herself on the demon's back. He was running around, flailing his arms, as she tried to stay still enough to pull out her stake from her jacket pocket.

The stake came out, but rattled uselessly to the ground. Dawn's eyes widened and she let go to drop down for it. She almost had it, but the vampire, now that it didn't have something on its back, decided to go for the something in front of it, which happened to be Dawn. He wrapped long fingers around the younger Summers' neck.

"Let her the fuck go!" Faith's fist slammed dead-on into his nose, knocking his fingers loose as he reached up for that bleeding, broken spot on his face. Dawn recovered herself, grabbing for the stake in the grass and brought it up to jam it in from behind while the vampire was busy worrying about the slayer in front. His mouth opened wide in surprise before the wind took the dust of him.

"Good one, D." Faith shared a high-five with her, grin matching grin as she leaned close to whisper conspiratorially. "But you better get to Giles' before big sis calls bedtime." They both looked over at Buffy, fighting with the last of the vampires, her blonde hair streaming out behind her as she spun into a kick.

The vampire went flying and Dawn could see that there wouldn't be any more vampires for her to dust when it was all done so, with only a little pout, she turned and ran the few houses over to Giles'.

Faith watched her get to the door before turning back to watch the blonde slayer in her element, each taut muscle built for what it was doing. The demon got in one punch that split her lip, but that only made her hit harder, punching him and then, as he staggered back, reaching up to gingerly touch that lower lip.

"That is going to hurt like hell when I put my chapstick on." Her side kick caught him square in the solar plexus. "Bastard!" He started to run back for her and she leapt up to catch a branch of the tree, swing on it to catch his head between her calves. With a twist she pulled his head right off his shoulders and then he, finally, was dust.

"Now you're just showin' off."

Buffy swung gracefully to the ground, glancing over at where the dark slayer was watching her, arms crossed, leaning against another tree in the yard. Faith could see the glint of those sharp teeth between her parted lips. Faith wondered if her own eyes were so dark and figured they probably were.

And then that was all she had time to wonder before the other slayer was pressing into her, straining to make it so the whole length of her was touching Faith. Both girls hummed from the night's fights and flights and the proximity of each other.

"I'm not sure whether we should be thanking you or calling the police."

Faith spared the shocked family on the porch a glance. "You're welcome. And I might try stayin' inside, if I was you. Away from windows and shit." That was all the time she was willing to give them when there was a blonde slayer running her tongue along Faith's jaw line. She hadn't even looked away, as focused as she was on her dark counterpart in front of her. The moment Faith stopped talking, Buffy captured that mouth with her own hungry one. Faith caught the taste of blood from the other girl's split lip and then the metallic tang from her own lip where Buffy's teeth pricked it.

Buffy took that lip between her own and sucked, hands roaming under Faith's shirt. Faith reached under and took one of them in hers, dragging the blonde into the dark path between the two houses. Their lips hardly parted before they crashed together again. Buffy could feel Faith's breath coming in short gasps into her mouth, the intake of air with every part of Faith she touched. Hands tripping over themselves to be everywhere at once, a frustration of clothes, hands sliding down to clamp hips to hips, a slow grind.

Faith could hear her the whimpers in Buffy's throat as those lips nipped their way down her neck, teeth grazing along, a hand pulling at the neck of her shirt, dragging it down to expose the collarbone, the tongue running across that ridge, then, sharply, fangs piercing the skin above her shoulder blade and biting down.

"Fuck, B!" It was all Faith could do to gasp it out, feeling the other girl's mouth drawing at her skin. She ripped open the button of Buffy's jeans, shoving her hand inside, feeling the zipper slide open to allow her more access as she was already inside that satin and then inside of Buffy, feeling more than hearing the blonde's cry as she went in and feeling how wet the other girl was for her already. She hiked the slim blonde up on her thighs and felt legs wrapping around her hips as her fingers drove deeper, then slid back out to find that sensitive nub and nudge a steady tremor, then back inside, faster, brushing across Buffy's clit with the heel of her palm. The legs encircling her brought the zipper of her own jeans right up against the back of her hand, pressed it in to her own muscles clenching at the sight of the stunning blonde, whose head was thrown back now, giving small cries to the moon, green eyes rolling back in her head.

"God, Faith! Yes! "

Down to single syllables and Faith wasn't sure she could even pull off a single one now with the nails raking across her back, the grip there and the tightening around her fingers below, holding on to her.

"Yes!" "God!"

Louder, hardly clear who was saying what, rocking with each thrust back into the side of the house, Faith's own hips quivering with the rhythm.

Then "Love!" And Faith could feel the spasming that matched Buffy's cry and her own cascading orgasm coming with Buffy's.

* * *

When Faith could next form a thought, she could only think of how labored her breathing sounded to her own ears, rushing there to pull more air in since it had practically given that up over the previous few minutes. She felt Buffy's legs slide slowly down hers and make their way again to the ground. She pulled her hand slowly out, using it and her other on either side of Buffy's head to prop her up against the side of the house. Her chest was on fire. Her knuckle was bleeding a little from the zipper. Buffy turned her head to one side with half-lidded eyes and kissed it. Faith caught those green eyes when they came back around to meet hers and leaned forward to rest her forehead against the blonde's for a moment. A moment. And then they both knew they were going to have to rejoin the chaos of their lives. Funny how they hadn't noticed the sirens still going off throughout.

* * *

"…and it's quite possible that that sort of magic would draw power and mystical energies to it, affecting the alignment of plates in the earth, pulling on the strength of the Hellmouth. Indeed, Dawn, that may explain the demons you and Buffy and Faith encountered and the ones Buffy encountered the night before in the sewer. I would imagine it's quite intoxicating for a demon, really, and—"

Faith had opened the door in the middle of it, and had heard quite enough. Before anyone even noticed she was there, she was standing in front of Willow, letting loose with her fist.

Willow cried out, hand fluttering up to the already reddening spot on her cheekbone. "Hey, no punching!"

But Faith was already crying out in surprise herself, shaking her fist. "You fuckin' sent a charge through me!" Looking down and seeing the blue haze of electricity flickering on Willow's fingers. "Oh, so you wanna do this?"

"Giles! Invite. Now!" Buffy yelled in from the doorway that kept her out, pounding her fists on the barrier.

But the Englishman was paying attention to the fight about to break out in his living room. "Faith!" He stepped in between the two girls, wincing a little at what that might involve. "Faith! Willow! Control yourselves."

"Oh, c'mon, G-man! She's had that comin' for a while now!" Talking around him to the witch on the other side. "Turn the magic shit off before you pull us all into hell. Literally."

"I'm not turning it _on_!" Willow snapped right back. Then she saw Giles looking at her. "I'm not, I swear! It's not my fault!"

"Giles!" Buffy had her hands pressed against the invisible wall.

"Not your fault!" Faith snorted. "S'not like the magic's comin' outta Xander's ass!"

"I just don't know how to stop it!"

"Well, figure it out! You started it in the first place! You're makin' everything out there all crazy!" As Faith gestured outside, the tremor of another aftershock shook the room. "And even if it makes B wanna go at it like a fuckin' wildcat, we got earthquakes and all kinds of opportunistic demon shit goin' on."

"Faith!" This time Buffy's yell was directed at her lover.

"Gah!" Dawn clamped her hands over her ears.

Anya leaned over to Jonathan, nodding. "I thought she looked disheveled."

Giles took the opportunity for something, anything, to distract him from Faith's last comment. "Goodness, Buffy. Of course, please come in." The blonde rushed in at his words.

Jonathan promptly leapt over the couch to put a large piece of furniture between him and the slayer. "You let her in! I can't believe you let her in!"

The Englishman was rubbing his eyes. "Oh, do be quiet, Jonathan. Buffy's not here to hurt you."

"How am I supposed to know she's not gonna decide to play who-can-give-the-biggest-hicky with me?" He jabbed an accusing finger at the bite mark on Faith's shoulder, easily visible where the t-shirt neck had been ripped to one side.

Anya patted him on the shoulder. "I don't think she's much into men. Particularly not your type."

"That's supposed to make me feel better?" His voice cracked a little at the end. "What about Warren?"

Buffy's face darkened, but she answered him anyway, forcing herself to hold her hands out in the classic pose of the unarmed. "I'm not going to hurt you." Then turn to Giles. "But we've got to do something. How do we stop this?" She looked over, meeting Willow's eyes for the first time. The other girl's skittered away.

Giles was the one that answered her. "I'm afraid I don't know that." He sighed. "Willow and I will have to look into it here." A glance at Willow. "And perhaps we can bring Tara in to help with that, if she's able." At his words, the witch bit at her lip, but said nothing.

The blonde slayer nodded, breathing in the anticipation of another fight. "Faith and I had better get back out there, then. The police can't handle this. And I can…at least until dawn."

Her sister stood there, arms crossed. "I'm coming, too."

Buffy started to open her mouth, but Faith placed a hand on her arm and she shut it again.

"I'll help, too." Xander looked over at his wife. "An, you mind stayin' here?"

"This is where the earthquake preparedness kit is kept."

"Right."

Giles looked over at Buffy as she headed towards the door. "Are you alright for this? With all the power in the area, the Hellmouth is exerting a considerable—"

But Buffy cut him off. "My vampire is looking for a fight. And, with all that's out there, that's exactly what we need right now."


	58. Chapter 58

A/N: Getting crazy 'round these parts.

* * *

"I didn't sign up for this, you know." Jonathan hardly waited for the slayers to leave again into the night.

Giles leveled a look in his direction. "Funny, I don't recall asking." He picked up the largest book on his desk and thumped it down in front of the young man. "When you threaten those I love, you don't get a say."

"But I didn't!" His voice high and squeaky. "And anyway, she was _way_ worse!" He jabbed his finger at the still-black-haired witch. Willow shrank back at that accusatory point, her mouth falling open, but nothing came out of it.

"He does have a—"

"Thank you, Anya, that will be all." Giles held out a hand to cut her off.

Willow found her voice, eyes darting between Jonathan and Giles. "But Warren shot her! He came into our backyard and started shooting all crazy-like and people can't just do that!"

A sharp jolt sent all of them reaching for the nearest stable object. Flecks of plaster drifted down from the ceiling. Anya yelped.

"Willow." A pause. "Willow!" The girl finally turned to look at Giles. "I think it might be prudent for you to try to remain as calm as possible until we can sort out this mess."

"Calm? But I'm not the one—" She gulped.

"Whether or not you mean to, your emotions feed this. Your magic is within you, and when you lack control…." He sighed. "It's used to responding to your impulses."

Willow's hand hovered over her mouth as she tried to hold in anything that might come out. As if it was a stray remark that was the problem.

Giles was still going on, his hand on her shoulder. "It's not that the impulses themselves are bad. Your desire to have Buffy back again, to save her from a perceived lack of soul, to repair the difficulties you and Tara were having—those are only human. But when linked with a potent and undisciplined magical talent…." He paused, watching the young woman's face. "Perhaps we could enlist Tara in restabilizing—"

"Tara!" The word escaped around Willow's fingers as her eyes went wide again at the thought. "She's all alone over there!" She dropped her hand and moved as if she would rush out the door, only to pull herself up short. "But then she'll know and she won't want to be with me because I hurt people because she's not the sort of girl who likes that and—!"

Another trembling shook the room. From somewhere not too far away: another ambulance, loud voices, a peppering of gunfire, some demonic roar.

From underneath the kitchen table, Anya: "Ix-nay on the uilt-gay!" She was wearing a metal pot on her head.

Giles stared at the blonde for a moment and then decided it wasn't worth addressing. He turned back to Willow, keeping his voice carefully slow and even. "Alright. I'm sure Tara is in capable hands there, and Dawn and Xander can go to her when they return. In the meantime, we'll try to find a way ourselves here first."

That Willow would have to face Tara sometime went unspoken.

* * *

Outside, Sunnydale looked like an anthill someone had just poked with a stick.

The slayers were putting out fires. Except not literally because there were fires and other, more-qualified people were putting those out. Instead they dealt with fires of the sort where demons have a field day with a shell-shocked populace. People didn't know whether to come out of their shaking houses or stay in them. Sometimes their houses didn't leave them a choice.

And demons were something that slayers knew just what to do about. Xander and Dawn struggled to keep up with them. Every time they managed to pin down a vampire between them, to avoid some monstrous paw coming right at their heads, to happily dodge a claw swipe and hit vulnerable belly with their own makeshift weapons, the slayers—light and dark—swept in to expertly speed the kill and then rush off to the next screaming scene.

"I think you guys are saving all the ones with slime for us." Xander paused, wiping off the residue of one demon's close encounter. Backing up, he tried to assess where would be best to poke the piece of white picket fence he was wielding like a spear. "And I just don't think that's fair."

The demon grunted.

Dawn whooped. "Found its weak spot!" She jabbed with her own white picketing but nearly stumbled as the point bounced off instead of sinking in. "False alarm. Just slimy armor." The demon swiped out at her with a mossy arm. She hit the ground, ducking, feeling the slime coat one side of her hair instead and yelled over at where her sister was pummeling a horned beast. "Okay, officially siding with Xander on this one. You guys take the next swamp thing."

"Oh, so you'd rather have antler boy?" Faith danced back to avoid a swipe of those sharp prongs, a big grin on her face.

"Hey, Rudolph!" Buffy tapped at the demon's shoulder from behind. It whirled with a roar, a good two feet taller than the diminutive blonde. But she was smiling. With fangs that still had not retracted. She punched him before he could come at her and he roared even louder.

"I swear to god, Buffy, if you make any sort of reindeer games comment, I am officially renouncing our sisterhood."

The blonde arched an eyebrow at Dawn. "You take away my fun." She barely got it out before the dark slayer laid a hand on her head, pressing her to duck down as several of the antlers skimmed just above.

"Watch it, B. Kinda partial to your head."

Buffy leaned into the other girl, capturing that full lower lip gently between her teeth, tugging, then dipping in for a kiss. Both of them hummed at the contact. Buffy pulled away slightly to look into her lover's eyes. "Just because my lips are there."

"There's that." Faith licked her lips, eyes darkening at the blonde's body flush against hers. "And you'd be wicked short without a head."

"Oh god! She's already stumpy enough!" Dawn yelled over from where she was trying to jab her demon back with the fence post.

"Hey!" The older Summers jerked her head around to level a mock-glare at her sister.

Faith hadn't taken her eyes off of Buffy, but shrugged, grinning. "She said it, not me." With a wink, she pulled Buffy to one side, kicking out at the horny demon who was still trying to come at them. He flew back, impaling the slime demon Dawn and Xander were working on.

"No fair!" Xander looked up, shaking his piece of picketing at Faith. "I was just about to get him!"

"Sorry, Xan-man. Never was the take-it-slow kind." And, waggling her eyebrows at the blonde slayer, she was taking off in the direction of the next commotion several houses down.

"Buff, don't know what you're gonna do with that girl." Xander raised his own eyebrows. "Though I bet you've got a few ideas."

"Okay, ew!" Dawn smacked him on the arm. "That's my sister! And your friend! And off-limit-y!"

And then they were all running to where Faith had thrown her slayer right into a mess of vampires attacking several older couples that had huddled together against the night's craziness. The demons were in a feeding frenzy and the slayers went into a corresponding slayer frenzy. Dawn and Xander dove in with their own stakes, ready to thin the edges of the herd. The younger Summers caught one so intent on his elderly prey that he hadn't even heard her coming until he was dust.

In the thick of it, Faith stumbled as one vampire threw an older man into her. She had been spinning for a roundhouse, but now had to check that blow and grab at the bleeding man hurtling towards her and try to stay on her own two feet. She reached out, flailing, catching Buffy's arm and nearly dragging the blonde down with her. But Buffy held them up and somehow they deposited old man near a bush and, in one fluid movement, catapulted Faith back in where she made good on the promise of her earlier roundhouse and followed it with a stake to the heart.

Swift and true.

Dawn staked one that had climbed on Xander's back.

Buffy flipped around a tree branch to launch herself into the chest of another, feet first.

The lead vampire left an old woman's neck and swung out with an uprooted mailbox, catching the blonde slayer a bruising blow to the shoulder. She snarled and turned to face him, holding that dislocated limb and leaving her back open to the one she had been fighting and who now tried to throw a tree limb through her.

Faith dove, knocking Buffy to the grass so the missile whizzed harmlessly by and took out the demon in front of her instead. Faith's hands reached up to pop Buffy's shoulder back in. Buffy's hands held on to either side of Faith's hips as she did it, feeling that heart racing, that blood pumping fast to fuel the reflexes.

"Lotta these fuckers." Faith apologized with it, wincing as she rolled up, seeing one already biting into the man they'd left by the bush.

Buffy blinked at the absence, then flipped to her feet, yelling at the vampire as she charged towards him. "Hey! I thought I said to leave grandpa alone!"

An old woman was screaming.

Xander's neck was bleeding a little where one attack had gotten through.

Faith got knocked back by a wicked blow to the chest on her way to help Dawn out with her demon. She bit back the cry that wanted to escape.

Dawn managed to get the fence post between her and the demon as she fell. It stuck up through him for a moment like a white spear before he exploded into dust. She could only stare, holding the post straight up into the air, trying to catch her breath.

Buffy leaned over to borrow that post, piercing one vampire easily with one end. She shoved the flat end into the vampire on the other side, straight through his neck. She wiggled it from side to side and severed his head from his body. One of the women clung on to her still-throbbing shoulder, crying.

Buffy nearly cried out herself at the pain. "Dawn? Can you—?" Her sister was there, guiding the woman away.

"B! A little help here!"

Buffy spun again to see a vampire slip through Faith's grasp, trying to cut his losses and run. She dove and caught his legs, bringing him crashing down. She scrambled up on top of him and stabbed. In an instant, she was on the ground herself, a mouthful of dust.

Turning, she saw Faith stretch to collar another one and bring him around to that inevitable stake. The slayer's mantra of plunge and move on, plunge and move on. The stake went through him from behind and he was gone and Faith was whirling to face the next, feeling another something moving up behind her, stake ready to find its home there as well. In front of the dark slayer's spinning eyes, a glimpse of dark blue, a badge, a mouth opened at the piece of wood hurtling towards his chest.

Buffy's own mouth opening with the words "Faith, no!" but she couldn't get them out fast enough.

Faith's eyes wide. Was she here? Was this another dark Sunnydale alley? Was this going to happen all over again? She grit her teeth against all the frenzy of the fight and screamed at herself and swung her stake-wielding arm wide, crashing into the police officer with her body instead of with her weapon, feeling that stake slip from her fingers and clatter to the ground, feeling the officer's training finally kick in as he pushed out of her awkward embrace, drew his gun and pointed it square at her chest.

This was the reward she got.

The stake still rolling across the grass.

The elderly couples now huddled again, applying pressure to wounds, but all still standing.

Faith could only blink at the inevitable "Freeze!" The squawk of the officer's radio as he talked into it. The words "fugitive" and "backup." Everyone staring dumbly at the two of them who were in turn staring at each other. He was just waiting for her to move.

And so he didn't see Buffy moving, a vampire- and slayer-enhanced blur that clamped one hand around his neck while the other pinched the metal of his gun barrel closed. Her face a snarl of teeth and demon, beautifully terrible, and going for his throat.

"B! No!" Faith got the words out in time, echoed by Dawn and Xander's "Buffy!"

The blonde blinked, shaking her head slightly to clear it. Her brow smoothed again, though the same dark eyes looked out from under it and the fangs still gleamed in her open mouth. She didn't loosen her grip on his throat, a growl humming in her own throat.

"What the fuck _are_ you?" The officer could only see her out of the side of his vision, close enough to kiss him goodbye. He tried to whirl his gun around at her, but stopped when he saw its mangled barrel, unsure what to do then. His radio crackled at him, the sound-off of backup on its way. "Hurry!" He yelled into it to the people who were still listening.

The vampire's hand squeezed a little.

"Buffy." Xander's warning.

She closed her eyes a moment, letting her hand unclasp, and then immediately chopping it down on his neck. The officer dropped, unconscious. She stared.

"Buffy, let's go!" There were so many reasons: the impending arrival of a whole squadron of police and surely it was getting towards morning. Dawn was already dragging Xander away. Faith grabbed Buffy's hand and they were off running, too.

* * *

The four of them tumbled through the doorway all together. Mostly breathing heavy, mostly flushed from the fighting and the running.

Faith ran a hand back through her hair, her voice husky, needing that searing bite of hot water to wash over her and give her time to think. "I'm just gonna…." She pointed to the stairs and took them two-at-a-time towards the shower.

Buffy started up after her only to be caught by Giles' hand on her arm. She bit back a small growl of annoyance.

"Buffy, are you al—?"

"Let's just say she probably made one police officer soil his pants." Xander answered for her and got a scowl from the blonde for his trouble.

Giles looked back down at the petite girl. "Buffy?"

"But what's more important is that Faith didn't."

"Well, actually, seeing the stake coming at him probably—" Xander stopped, seeing Buffy's frown.

"Don't be difficult." She gave him an eyebrow and turned back to her former watcher. "Giles, she pulled back. She could've easily staked him by accident and nobody would've blamed her, but she didn't."

The Englishman felt some little knot in his shoulder finally loosening after goodness knows how long. "Well, I'm relieved. Not entirely surprised, given the admirable turnaround we've seen her undergo, but relieved nonetheless. And I hope she'll give herself credit for it."

"Faith doesn't strike me as a self-congratulator."

Giles sighed. "Yes, I'm aware of that." He paused, then started again. "Buffy, I trust the two of you were able to restore some order out there." He could see by the glint in her eyes, and her fidgeting, that there had been fighting, and plenty of it.

Dawn chimed in. "Um, yeah, if by order you mean coming out slightly ahead on whack-a-demon."

The Englishman rubbed at his glasses. "Yes, well, we haven't yet made much progress here with tamping down the Hellmouth's reawakening energies."

Willow had sat quietly so far, pretending to be engrossed in her book. She looked up now, an angry bruise on her cheekbone. "There was that one spell."

"Which seemed a bit of a long-shot, as we agreed. And I'm not sure if escalating the power here should be our plan."

Willow opened her mouth, but shut it seeing Giles' look. She glanced at Buffy instead, knowing they still hadn't had a chance to talk since…. But the blonde's eyes were hovering around the region of the stairway.

"I'm for any plan that does not involve more earthquakes." Anya was still wearing her metal pan.

"Yes, thank you, we're working on that, Anya." Giles rolled his eyes, glancing outside. "At least with day coming soon we shouldn't have to worry as much about demonic activity."

Buffy had edged towards the stairs. "So...right. You guys seem like you're on track with this whole plan-making thing so I'm…." She didn't even wait to finish her sentence before she was clambering up after Faith.

* * *

The whole bathroom was a cloud of steam. Faith's dark hair gave her away in the middle of it all. Buffy left her clothes in a pile on the floor, slid back the frosted glass door, and stepped in behind her. The dark slayer was standing with her eyes closed under the stream, hands out on the wall in front of her.

Buffy slipped her arms around, practically vibrating at the contact with that flushed skin.

"I told them what happened."

Faith's eyes opened at the words. She grabbed at the shampoo bottle and started lathering up as if she'd been about to do that all alone. "I knew Giles would be into that slime demon shit."

Buffy squeezed one of Faith's hip bones. "You know that's not what I'm talking about." A pause. "You've shown you can do it. That you're not destined to be that out-of-control—" She stopped and restarted. "Not the same person you were last time you were in Sunnydale." She watched Faith work the soap down to the ends of her hair. "Heck I'm not even sure I could've done what you did. All that fighting, and nobody's perfect…."

Faith gave a wry smile. "I mighta said you were a time or two."

Buffy trailed her fingers across the younger girl's flat stomach. "Which sounds nice until you realize that those times the words "little" and "miss" were usually in front of it." Her fingers traced the curves under Faith's breasts. "From here on out, you are only allowed to call me perfect when we're making love." She pressed into her lover's back.

"Oh? Somebody's mighty proud of their skills." Faith's mouth slipped even further into a grin, arching into the hands that reached up to cup her breasts, sliding her nipples between those fingers.

"I haven't heard any complaints yet." Buffy's voice rasped right in Faith's ear, husky with having waited so long for what it wanted. Her hands held those breasts tighter, rubbing across the nipples with her thumbs. She kissed across those shoulder blades as if wings could have grown there. She ran her teeth across the ridge of them.

Faith's breath had grown short, quick. "God." It was hardly a whisper, more of an exhale as the dark slayer moved to place more of her body against that skin, under those hands, at the mercy of that mouth. Her hands still gripped the shower wall in front of her, quivering a little as Buffy's hand skated down her back, down around the curve of her ass, gasping as Buffy touched her from below, sliding a finger between those lips to touch her sensitive clit.

"Oh, fuck!"

Faith yelled it into those tiles, her heartbeat pounding in her ears.

Buffy's own voice trembling. "God…you feel so good!" Her finger finding a rhythm, her whole body vibrating. All that fighting, all night, so long. Faith's hips were moving with her. They pressed back into her own. That whole body against hers. Intoxicating, slippery, hot. In an instant, her fangs were in Faith's neck. And then her lover was arching back into that as well and the blonde slayer held on tighter, eyes closing at the warm, perfect, liquid in her throat. Faith gasping, body bowed between the two points of Buffy's touch, one foot coming up to rest on the side of the tub to steady her and to allow Buffy's fingers more room, whispering the letter of her lover's name over and over again until there wasn't sound coming out of her mouth and the lights were behind her eyelids and blood was drawn out and out and her hands were slipping down that wall until she was coming hard into Buffy's hand and she heard the cries into her neck as Buffy shuddered hard against her back in her own orgasm.

Faith couldn't have moved if she'd wanted to. Lightheaded. Buffy held tight to her, holding her up, cheek pressing against Faith's back.

A loud knocking at the door. "I was the one who had to face the slime demon, you know!" Pause. "You've already had one shower tonight anyway!"

Buffy growled softly into Faith's back. Faith reached out for the door of the shower, almost missing it in her dizziness, but catching it instead, wrapping white knuckles around it.

Through the door: "And I think Giles has a room all rigged up for you for, you know, when there's sun."

Buffy felt Faith slip out of the shower ahead of her and reluctantly stepped out of the hot spray herself. "Oh great."


	59. Chapter 59

A/N: My thanks again for any and all reviews!

* * *

"How the heck am I supposed to go to sleep with all this tweed?"

Giles knew he should have expected this. "I'm not quite sure that I see what the one has to do with the other, Buffy." His former slayer wrinkled her nose at the spot he had cleared out on one closet floor for her.

Xander zipped his fingers across his lips. "Now, see, there's a closet joke and lesbians and I didn't go there. Nope…I just let it slip on by."

Giles rolled his eyes in the younger man's direction. "Yes, thank you, Xander, for your admirable show of restraint." Looking around at the rest of them. Everyone was either looking at his wardrobe or at the blankets and pillow he had set out on the floor of the little room. "I don't think I need to remind anyone that I did not purchase this condo with vampire accommodations in mind."

"And remember he had Spike chained in the bathtub." Xander raised a warning finger in the blonde slayer's direction. "You, too, could be chained in the bathtub."

Faith leaned against the wall, looking at Xander for a moment, then back to Buffy, one dark eyebrow arched against that very pale skin. "Well, now there's a thought." Buffy's eyes had darkened at the mention of Spike, but, seeing the younger girl's eyebrow, she filed that drama away for later, wanting instead to see Faith's smile. She let her pink tongue play mischieveously at the tip of one fang.

Xander was also looking at Faith. "Ooh, ooh…penny for those lovely thoughts."

Faith started to come off the wall, but thought better of it and leaned back again. Giles quickly cut in.

"Xander, I'll thank you to keep your sordid pennies to yourself. Faith doesn't need your encouragement at the moment." He turned to the slim blonde next to him. "Buffy, I expect it will just be temporary, but, until then…."

She waved a hand at his apology. "It's fine." She drew herself up. "Really. Finer than fine, considering that my former home is sort of leaning these days. And possibly not quite habitable." She kneeled down on the pile of blankets and pillows. "This, on the other hand, has the requisite creature comforts." Turning to Faith. "You'll stay?"

"Just gonna grab a smoke."

"You'll be back?"

"Yeah."

And then Buffy nodded, pulling the door shut herself, knowing that no one else wanted to do it.

* * *

"Are you alright?"

The dark slayer looked over to see the Englishman join her in the courtyard's dusky morning light. Ambulances and construction trucks still rumbled by, though morning seemed to have quieted things somewhat. "Bet when you were growin' up, you never thought you'd be askin' that question so much."

Giles leaned against the wall next to her, inhaling the smoke she was exhaling. "No. No, you're probably right about that one." He paused. "Which, of course, doesn't make it any less noticeable when someone fails to answer that question."

"You just want me to say five-by-five, dontcha?" She raised an eyebrow, still looking out.

One corner of his mouth tipped up. "Well, as much as I would hate for you to develop a reputation for predictability…." He looked over at her, wan in the growing light. "I should think you have reason to be pleased. Buffy told me what happened with the officer. That you were able to maintain control, even in the frenetic pace of battle."

"Yeah, and got heat pulled for my trouble. He coulda shot Dawn or Xander."

"Or you."

Faith shrugged, so Giles went on.

"I hear, however, that Buffy instead invoked her vampire.

Again, silence.

"And it would appear she did the same with you, albeit in a different context." Faith's eyes flicked up to meet his at that one, her hand going involuntarily to her neck. He glanced down at the twin wounds, then back up to those eyes. "It's no secret. You're pale enough to be considered translucent. And, if I'm not mistaken, you're a little unsteady on your feet."

Faith dropped her hand, opting for a grin. "Thought you didn't want to hear 'bout sordid stuff."

"Be that as it may…." Giles cleared his throat and went on, refusing to blush. "Buffy asks a great deal from those around her. Sometimes she does not realize just how much." He paused. "And, because she is who she is to all of us, we are inclined to give."

"S'no big." She shrugged, tapping her ash off.

He sighed, watching the sun pull away from the horizon. "Considering the history between the two of you, everything will always be out-sized in some way." He searched for the words. "I just hope that you remember that you can tell her no, for the sake of both of you."

Faith pulled on her cigarette, then took the time to exhale. "Yeah. We wouldn't want her goin' all undead and lovin' it on us."

"I was more worried about you, Faith. I don't want anything to happen you because you feel—" He could feel those dark eyes on him, some mixture of the front she was ready to put up the moment he completed that sentence and her desire to know what he was going to say, to have herself explained to her.

Because you feel guilty? Because it's easier? Because you've waited for so long and it's right and you don't want to let go, whatever the cost? Because it's good to be needed?

Nothing was going to come out right.

He started again, settling on something simpler. "I don't want anything to happen to you." And even though she said nothing, he knew she heard him. He put his hand on her shoulder for a moment, before walking back inside and leaving her to the rest of her cigarette.

* * *

"It's inhumane to keep us here researching, you know, when normal people are sleeping." Jonathan began whining as soon as Giles walked back inside.

"Welcome to the world of the non-normal." The Englishman looked over at Anya, expecting her complaints next.

The ex-vengeance demon just shrugged. "I've already arranged to pay myself overtime."

Xander came down the stairs just in time to catch the comment. "Yessir, that's my meal ticket." He looked around. Just Jonathan, Anya, Willow, and Giles with their mounds of books. "What happened to Faith?"

The Englishman pointed to the door. "Outside, smoking."

"Is she—?"

"Alright?" Giles gave a small smile. "Oh yes, I was easily able to ascertain that through our extended discussion of her psychological and physical well-being, the dynamics of her relationship with one blonde slayer, and the current repercussions of her childhood experiences."

"You got 'five-by-five,' huh?"

"I would say that's just about accurate."

"I'm thinking our Buff might be getting a little carried away with the fiendish foreplay." He wiped his hand across his face, clearing off the tiredness. "I mean, Faith looked like she could hardly stand up." A quick glance in Willow's direction, where his old friend was staying resolutely focused on the books in her lap. But he had the impression she was listening. "And, what with all the Hellmouthiness, I'm not even sure Buffy realizes it."

"Which makes it all the more important to figure out how to put a lid on the, as you call it, 'Hellmouthiness.'"

"Nothing so far, huh?"

"Other than that it is apparently feeding off the swell of black magic and raw power, no."

"But there are those containment spells!" Willow blurted it out.

Giles turned to her, his voice taking on a thread of steel. "Containment for the Hellmouth, yes. Which doesn't solve the problem of the excess power that's pouring out of you."

"But if we take care of the Hellmouth first—"

Giles didn't let her finish. "Ah, yes, the royal 'we.' And I expect you think you should be the one to wield the powerful magicks necessary to contain the Hellmouth when you've proved yourself unable to contain or prudently use the power you currently have."

Willow was on her feet now, books having fallen off her lap, forgotten. "But I could do it!"

Anya put the metal pan back on her head.

"It's a hard spell, but I could do it! I won't lose contr—!"

And the world shifted and twisted under their feet again. Xander was thrown over the back of the couch to fall ungracefully across its cushions. Giles stumbled against the wall. Jonathan and Anya both dived under desks. Dawn stumbled down the last few steps of the stairway even as Faith slammed the door open.

"What the fuck was that and what just happened to the sun?" Behind the slayer, the sky had gone dusky and dark again.

"Will! You turned off the freaking sun!?!" Xander picked himself up.

Dawn's mouth fell open, and then she shut it, running back up the stairs.

She threw up her hands. "I didn't!"

"That's it…this is just stupid. I'm gonna go get Tara. See if she has some ideas. C'mon, hon." Xander held his hand out to his wife.

"No!" Willow said it just a little too loudly. "I mean, we're really close to figuring it out here and what if she's still not feeling up to—"

"Well, you wouldn't know that, would you, since you just left her there all alone because you couldn't deal!"

Willow's voice was climbing towards hysterical again as Xander's back disappeared through the doorway. "I didn't leave her! I love her! It's just—"

The impact of Faith's punch cut her off, knocking her back into the chair she'd leapt out of a few long moments earlier. "God! Will you just shut the fuck—!"

The thought had hardly crossed Willow's mind before the electricity arced from her fingers to Faith's tense and pale body, lifting it up for a moment before the brunette even had time to cry out and then Dawn was screaming from the foot of the stairs and Giles was tackling Willow from one side, interrupting the current one step ahead of Buffy, who had come barreling down the stairs to skid to a stop in between Willow and Faith, head swiveling back and forth between the two, before settling on her lover.

"Faith! Are you—?"

The dark slayer waved her off, gritting her teeth as she leaned over, hands on her knees. Breathing heavy.

Buffy reached out rub the back of one knuckle across the other girl's shoulder. Glancing back at Willow, then again to Faith. Those dark brown eyes looked up to meet hers. She spoke quietly. "Whatever happens next, don't get in the middle of it unless I tell you. Please."

She squeezed Faith's arm and then squared her shoulders to find her old friend still winded from her collision with the wall, rubbing at her jaw, eyes black. Everyone had started to talk at once.

"Dear Lord, was that electricity?" and "You just—!" and "We're all gonna die!" and the whispered "fuck" under Faith's breath as she tried to make her skin stop jumping.

"Willow!"

Buffy's voice cut through all of the noise and shut everyone else up. Her fangs were bared, and she was careful to keep Faith behind her. She waited until Willow's eyes met her own. Green and green. The ground trembled slightly beneath them.

"_She_ just hit _me_, in case you didn't notice!" Willow pointed at the reddening spot on her jaw, next to her still-greenish bruise from earlier.

"Oh, well, in that case…wait, no, there's never going to be a time when its okay to _electrocute_ her. I mean, for crying out loud, Will, you didn't used to do things like this!"

"And you used to protect your friends! Before you went off and got yourself all vamp-y and started sleeping with Faith, who once held me hostage, and—"

"Leave her out of this!" The growl. "And I didn't go and _get _myself all vampire-y, like it was something I picked up at Target. Don't make me say what led up to that."

"Don't make you say it? You wouldn't say _anything_ to me after— I was trying to help you!"

Faith raised up at that, taking a few steps forward. "Well, maybe she didn't want your help! And maybe your help fuckin' hurts!"

"Oh, I bet you'd know what that was like, huh, Ms. I Kill People for Fun."

And then the dark slayer was surging forward.

"Faith!" The groan was half out of Buffy's mouth as she grabbed for the brunette—of course she wouldn't do as she was asked!—before Buffy noticed Willow's angry eyes eagerly fixating on Faith, her fingers working. "Will! Stop!" The blonde slayer reached out to shove Faith behind her again.

Green eyes reluctantly left Faith and settled back on Buffy, a little cocky now that she could see the dark slayer seething. She raised an eyebrow. "Do you really think you could protect her?"

Buffy heard Dawn suck in a breath. But it hardly had time to register before Buffy was flinching to the side to scramble out of the way of the missiles flying towards her. But not far enough. She cried out as three pencils each lodged an inch deep in her arm and several others whizzed past to dig into the sheetrock.

"Willow!" This time it was Giles' loud voice ringing out in the room. The witch flinched first into shame and then into something more defensive as she tried not to look at Buffy biting her lip, pulling those pencils out in a bunch.

"I wasn't really going to hurt—"

But Faith was snarling by now, trying to get around Buffy, who mouthed "please" one time before turning, dropping the pencils on the ground, and walking slowly towards Willow. She forced her face to shift all the way.

"Maybe not, but you wanted me to know you could, didn't you?"

Willow lifted her chin. "Maybe somebody needs to be able to."

Buffy was still coming, forcing every slayer impulse to just hold on for a minute, forcing her hands to remain at her side, unclenched. "Well, what are you waiting for? I'm sort of ridiculously easy to kill, when you get right down to it."

"Faith promised me she'd be able to control you, but you went after me and Tara. You bit Tara!"

The slayer's green eyes tinged yellow. "And you don't know that I won't do it again."

Willow was practically shaking, fingers clenching and unclenching, voice high and scratchy. "You bit Tara and I should have been able to help her! I just want to help! I _do _help!" Eyes flickering over to Faith, who was bouncing on the balls of her feet, but holding her place for now. "And people I love get hurt and they die anyway…." Eyes coming back to find Buffy.

Buffy was close enough to hear the other girl's heartbeat loud in her ears. "But it's never good enough…what you do…is it?"

"It's not!" Willow jumped on the words. "It's not and nobody ever realizes…."

"I'm not going to thank you for bringing me back, Will."

Willow flinched at that one, then set her jaw. "Well, I wouldn't have done it if I'd known it was going to end up like this! And maybe then Tara wouldn't have gotten so upset about the magic and we would've—"

"And she wouldn't have nearly died from a bullet meant for me." Buffy was close enough to reach out and touch the other girl, trying not to think of all the wooden implements—pencils, furniture, extra stakes—within Willow's reach, trying to keep her hands at her sides, her face fanged even as she could practically hear Faith's need to jump in, knowing that, as close as Buffy was to Willow, she wouldn't make it in time.

"Warren." Willow hissed the name, narrowing her eyes. "Warren that you took away from me. Killing him like—"

"Like a vampire?"

"Like you went after Tara! And who's to say you won't try to drain her like you're practically draining Faith!"

Now it was Buffy's turn to flinch, glancing quickly around to see those dark circles, the pale skin of her lover's set jaw. Her doing. Who was she to talk about control? When Buffy forced herself to turn away, back to Willow, she found one of those extra stakes hovering right in front of her chest.

Dawn let out a strangled cry. Giles opened his mouth, but words weren't coming as he glanced helplessly over at Faith, whose lips were whispering "B" even as she stayed frozen to her spot.

Buffy locked her eyes on Willow's red-rimmed ones, searching for a long moment. Then: "You think having the power to kill is what you want?"

Willow's eyes squeezed shut. "But…Buffy! Tara! I don't know…I just—I just want it all how it was before it got all—" The stake wavering in place. "Before it got all like this." Tears starting to fall. Her voice cracking into a whisper. "And what if something happens? Or she doesn't want to be with me! What if she leaves me? What would I do?"

Buffy caught the stake just as Willow released it, bringing it away from her chest as she took that last step to close the distance between the two of them, wrapping Willow in her arms.

"Cry."

At the touch and the word, which promised that sometimes there was nothing that could be done about it, Willow began to sob, letting go. Buffy closed her eyes, feeling the demon fall from her face, feeling the catch in her own throat as the stake slipped through her fingers and clattered down. Willow leaned back, hiccupping, watching it roll across the wood floor, her eyes wide.

"I almost— Would you have—?" She couldn't even say it, recoiling from the weapon. Eyes pleading.

Buffy let the stone wall drop from her face, feeling all of those words that were out there between them now. Not perhaps the easiest way to get them out, but…. "No. I wouldn't have let you." A sad smile. "But I had to know if you would really try."


	60. Chapter 60

A/N: Sixty! Can you believe it? And such a long one, too!  


* * *

"Not to ruin the moment or anything, but the sun's still not doing its thing outside."

Everyone looked first at Jonathan and then through the window outside to where it was, indeed, still dark.

"Which sorta works out well for B." Faith looked away from the glass and back the blonde, who still had her arms around Willow and her own eyes closed. In full view of the window. Faith could still see the quiver in the muscles under Buffy's skin. Adrenaline, tiredness, the moment, the Hellmouth. It could be any number of things.

At Faith's familiar husky voice, those green eyes came open, searching and finding that dark, liquid brown waiting, reflecting their own relief back at her.

In the middle of it all, the younger Summers, freed from her shock, hurtled across the room to throw her arms around Buffy. The embrace knocked the older girl back a little until she got her arms up and around as well, smiling and squeezing her eyes shut one more time.

"Don't you ever do that again!" Dawn whispered it into her sister's ear as she held on tight.

Buffy whispered "I love you" back.

Willow's cries hiccupped as she stood, rocking a little from where Dawn had just pulled Buffy away. Her eyes were on the window and the persistently absent sun. "But it was supposed to...."

Giles rubbed at his glasses. "I'm afraid a crack in the door may be all the Hellmouth needed in order to begin the process of—"

"That sentence doesn't sound like it's going to have a good end to it."

"Xander!" Willow whirled from the window to find him in the doorway.

He stepped aside to reveal Tara behind him, wearing a pair of pink, scavenged scrubs. He had one arm gently around her, holding her steady.

"Tara!"

"Willow!" Anya was the only one in the room not holding her breath. Xander stared at her. "What? I thought we were affirming each other or something."

"That we do later."

"Oh. Right."

Everyone but them was still staring at Willow and Tara, a roomful of heads swiveling back and forth like the audience at a tennis match.

"Tara." Willow said it again, and it was more of a whisper this time as she struggled to read Tara's drawn face.

"Oh, Willow." What do you say? Tara could still see Willow's face bending towards her in the bedroom right before…. That last moment when everything seemed to be going so well. Bathed in the perfect moonlight. "Willow…."

"You're okay! And out of the hospital and walking and alive, which is the most important thing, what with the bullet and—" Her words tripped over themselves as she took a step towards her love. One, then two, amazed.

"Willow, the sun…the earthquakes. Xander said…." Voice quiet with the strain.

The former redhead stopped moving, eyes flashing quickly at Xander, before they came quickly back to Tara, taking in the sad confusion. Then flickering around the room. Was this really happening? Maybe if everyone else was smiling…. But they weren't. They were watching her. Buffy's green eyes were still on her. Vivid. Waiting and tense. Willow felt her mouth going dry. Looking back at Tara, sucking in a breath. "I'm…I'm sorry…I didn't mean for…." Tears flowing.

Tara closed her own eyes for a long moment, then opened them again. "I know."

And then she was walking, not towards Willow, but gingerly towards the stairs, some bedroom where she could lie down. Buffy kept her eyes on Willow for a moment more as the earth stayed mercifully still, then moved quickly and was at Tara's side—pale hand helping her up the steps, a quiet "I'm so glad you're okay"—until they disappeared from view. Giles took one look at Willow, paused for a moment, and then went up after the blondes. Faith followed, with a harder look and no need to pause.

* * *

"Buffy, perhaps Tara and I could have a moment. I'd like to talk to her about whether something could be done that might…." Giles trailed off because there were any number of things at the moment that they might like to do something about.

The blonde slayer nodded, squeezing Tara's hand where they'd made her comfortable on the bed. Given the dark shadows under her eyes, her pale face, Buffy wondered whether they'd had to sneak her out. Bruising around the little red prick in her arm from the IV, sheen of sweat on her brow. Probably. "Let us know if there's anything you need." One last squeeze and she turned to find Faith leaning against the doorway.

Dark shadows there, too. Faith turned and went into the hallway.

Buffy shut the door quietly behind her and grasped at Faith's wrist, swinging the dark slayer gently around to face her. Bodies brushed together in the dim light. Faith's lower lip had a spot of dark red on it where she'd bitten at it earlier, in the middle of everything.

"B, that shit you pulled down there…."

"You know it was the only way to find out what she would do, whether she would cross that line."

"So sue me if I'm a little less fuckin' worried about her."

Buffy swept a dark lock behind the other girl's ear. "I know she said some things about you. You know they aren't true. She just said them to get under your skin."

"Well, it worked. And if Red so much as looks at you funny again, I'm kickin' her ass. I'm not sittin' on the sidelines again."

But Buffy was only half-listening, staring instead at the twin red holes in Faith's neck. The bite mark she'd made when Faith's body was sliding up next to hers in the shower. When she'd come at the feeling of Faith shuddering against her and the feeling of that sweet tang in her throat.

She winced. She'd gotten off on that.

"You should be more worried about me, apparently." She wiped her hands across her eyes, bringing them up to sweep her hair back away from her face. "God! I mean, I can't even make the fangs retract anymore!"

Faith didn't let her pull back. She ran a thumb across Buffy's lower lip, close to those glinting teeth. "G-man says the Hellmouth's makin' it harder for your slayer to fight. Keyin' ya up."

At the touch, Buffy found herself staring at the other girl's lips, dark and full. And then caught her stare as it slipped down to fixate on the little bloody, bitten spot. "Fuck!" She hissed the word out, forcing herself to look away.

"Such a dirty mouth." Faith arched an eyebrow, curling one side of her mouth into a grin. "And thought we did that earlier, but if you wanna again, far be it from me…."

Buffy's brow furrowed even further. "What, so I can drain you completely this time? I'm serious, Faith."

"Sorry, proximity's kinda makin' it hard to focus, B." Faith leaned back into the wall next to the doorway, feeling those slim hips pressed against her own. It was easy to make her words sound like a familiar, over-sexualized refrain. And because it was familiar, there was little reason to look past it to see the events of just a little bit earlier playing in front of those brown eyes. She wouldn't have been able to get there fast enough. If something had happened. She clamped the blonde even tighter against her, feeling the groan catch in the other girl's throat, hardly hearing the warning "Faith…" just before she captured Buffy's mouth with her own.

Buffy jerked back at the iron taste as Faith's lip split even further at the contact. "Faith, please…!" A hoarse whisper. The black in her eyes grown so large it threatened to swallow its emerald shield. Her whole body trembling, taut, hands fumbling to push at Faith. "I can't…I can't be here…I'm going to lose control and I can't…."

Faith blinked and snapped from the Buffy standing with the business-end of a stake pointed at her chest to the Buffy in front of her now, pleading. She could taste the blood on her own lip. She drew in a ragged breath. "It's not always on you, B." She wrapped her arms around the blonde and pulled her into a tight embrace. "S'okay. We can do this, B. We'll figure it out." Leaning in to kiss the other slayer's forehead, the bone right above one closed eyelid, down one cheek, nipping along her jawline and down her throat. "'Til then, why don't we just let my mouth do the talkin'?"

Feeling Faith's strong hand at the nape of her neck, the other one flat at the base of her spine, Buffy stayed tense for a minute and the finally let her head fall back, letting Faith's mouth do its thing.

* * *

Giles stepped quietly around the two in the hallway, catching Faith's glance with an eloquent eyebrow and receiving the slightest nod in return. He went back downstairs, alone. The researching had resumed. Tense, scattered, determined enough to put aside reflection on other things. Willow frowned at the computer screen in front of her.

"Willow, if you would like…." He cleared his throat as those dark green eyes swung around to meet him. "Tara has asked for you."

Willow instantly popped up out of her seat, but seemed less sure what to do once up. Taking a deep breath, she tried not to look at any of the other eyes in the room, focusing on those stairs as she slowly walked up them.

Xander looked back at Giles after she'd gone. But before the younger man could speak, the former watcher was already laying out their plan for attack.

"Jonathan, could you find that Hellmouth containment spell again?"

"But—"

Xander beat him to the punch. "I thought we couldn't let Willow do that, what with the whole loose-cannon thing."

The Englishman sighed. "Willow won't be doing it. The rest of us will."

Anya looked up from her book. "Oh, well then. That makes me feel so much better."

* * *

It took a second for Willow's eyes to adjust to the dim light of the upstairs hallway, to resolve the darkness into the shape of Buffy pressing into Faith, head tipped back, mouth open and fanged as Faith's kisses worked down across her collarbone and the edge of the black tank's neckline.

They weren't looking so they didn't see Willow swallow, and recognize that her own lips had parted and shut them, and feel a crushing tightness in her chest and work to unravel it, and work even harder when Faith's hand slid down to cup Buffy's jean-clad ass.

But they were in between her and the door. Her and Tara.

"Excuse me."

Faith's head lifted from its kisses at the top swell of Buffy's breast. The blonde, eyes still closed, whimpered at the loss of touch. Faith glanced back to that small cry, then turned to stare at Willow again, taking in the large bruises on her jaw. She sniffed, one corner of her mouth fluttering upwards.

But Willow spoke before she could.

"Do you mind?" It was supposed to be simple question. A gesture at the door.

It didn't come out quite that way.

"Yeah, well, fuck you." Faith bit back, and didn't make any attempt to reign in the sneer any longer. Slipping out from between the wall and blonde slayer, she stalked back downstairs.

Buffy leaned against the wall and watched her go, then banged her head softly against the wall. "Please don't take this away from me, too, Will."

"Too?" Willow's turn to frown. The thing that Willow had already taken sat between them like a rock. "Are you always going to bring that up?"

"No." Buffy let out a long breath she didn't need. "But, I don't know, maybe yes. I'm not doing it to be mean. I just…." Dark green eyes holding Willow's. "I don't know. Anyway, I love Faith. I wish you could see that." And then she, too, was walking away down the hall.

"Stupid, stupid." Willow hissed it to herself, watching the blonde go. And then, steeling herself, went into the bedroom.

"Willow, is that you?"

"In the friend-alienating flesh."

"You don't alienate people."

"No, it's true. I mean, of course you wouldn't agree because you're always that kind of nice person and you try to see what's good in people—which is one of the reasons I like you—but I'm pretty sure I do. Pretty sure I'm messing up most things I touch, these days." A sad smile. "Including you. Us."

The blonde met that smile with her own sad one. "Your heart was in the right place."

Willow's eyes widened a little, reaching out to take Tara's hand, rub circles on the back of it with her thumb. "Do you think it's a heart you could—?"

Tara squeezed her hand and then let it go. "I don't know, Willow. Sometime, maybe. Not now. There's just been too much…."

"But everything—all of it was for—"

"I'm sorry, Willow, but that doesn't make it better. It only makes it harder."

"Oh." A small word when she felt like she couldn't breathe. She felt everything rising up inside and worked to choke it back down. Strained the second time. "Oh."

Tara took her hand again. "It's taking a lot to keep it in, isn't it?" Willow could only nod, dislodging tears. "That's what Giles thought." A deep breath. "I think I can help…help you with some walls. You'll have to open yourself for a minute at the beginning, really let yourself be open so I can come in and work with you. But you have to want to let me in. You have to want to work with me for it to work. Can you do that?"

Slowly, Willow nodded, sniffling, allowing the other girl to take her hands, watching as Tara brought herself gingerly up to sit across from Willow on the bed. Watching Tara nod at her to close her eyes and then close them and then remember _open_, _open_ and open herself like being a glass of water and then taking away the glass so that you hope the water will stand there on its own, and somehow it does, feeling every vibration humming through the air around it, every little penetration of overwhelming air. Tara, the same knot in her stomach, tired, feeling Willow's hands in her own. Giles downstairs, the crease in the middle of his forehead, page after page between his fingers. Xander watching Anya, reaching out to push a stray strand behind her ear while she read, the big heart. Dawn, the energy, the strong pull towards her sister, the worry, the young indifference to danger. Faith's fingertips brushing across Buffy's thigh, ostensibly going for a book, the fierce protectiveness, the anger still, but the tenderness, fingers feeling the tiny ribbing of denim, the muscle tensing underneath. Buffy's fever and love, leaning into Faith's touch, and her worry, the heavy weight of what she took on herself, Willow in there somewhere…. Until Tara stepped into the liquid of her thoughts.

Then, one by one—finally, but also finally—the sensations closed off and left Willow alone in her own skin.

* * *

"Those of us casting the spell will all gather here, at the Hellmouth itself." The morning had worn into afternoon, though you couldn't tell it by the dim light outside. The sirens were nearly constant now. Giles pointed on the diagram Xander had drawn for him. Everyone crowded around. "Now we aren't sure exactly what to expect. The demons waiting there…well, some of them may have even crawled through—we won't know until we get there—but they are not your run-of-the-mill demons. Not half-human bastardizations, like vampires—"

"Hey! Watch who you're calling a bastard." Buffy arched an eyebrow at him.

"Present company excluded, of course. Particularly given that being a slayer makes you somewhat different from the usual—"

"Right, she's like Super Bastard Slayer." Xander put an arm around Buffy and squeezed.

She made a face at him. "Yeah, let's get me a cape and put that on my chest."

Faith chuckled. "Not to slight your god-given assets, B, but I'm not sure it would fit." For which she earned a smack on her arm.

Anya cut in. "Ooh! Or Slayer Plus! That's shorter. With maybe an 'S' and a plus."

Buffy threw up her hands. "Okay, now I sound like a cereal with added fiber. Giles, you were saying? So Faith and I will take care of creepiness that comes forth…."

"Actually, Buffy, you should not be that close to the Hellmouth. Its pull would simply be too strong for the vampire within you. Faith will be our slayer there."

The blonde blinked, looking between Faith and Giles. "But you just said the stuff coming out of…."

"Will be of the sort Faith is eminently qualified to take on, without the added worry of a demon within." Giles held his ground and put a hand on Faith's shoulder. He could feel the dark slayer staring at him, but went on to Buffy. "You will take the perimeter, watching for those demons already here that will be attracted to the Hellmouth's impending opening. And Willow will help you there."

Now it was the redhead's turn to protest. "Wait, I'm not going to be casting the spell? I thought I was going to be—"

The Englishman shook his head. "Also not advisable. Tara may have erected some walls for you, but there's no need to test them so quickly. And Tara is quite accomplished when it comes to magic, so I have no doubt she will be—"

"But she's still weak and—"

"Willow…." Xander softened his warning with a hand on her shoulder. "Tara won't be the only one casting. "We'll be there to support her. And we've all done a few of these in our day."

Buffy nudged her shoulder. "Looks like we drew the short straw, Will. But, hey, it'll be sort of like old times. Except, you know, we're older, and thus there will probably be more aspirin later. Or more Hellmouth. But hopefully the first one."

Willow furrowed her brow and started to open her mouth, but at Tara's glance, kept it shut.

Dawn dropped an armful of weapons on the coffee table with a clank, keeping two stakes for herself. "I'm going with Buffy."

Giles raised his eyebrows. "Well, Dawn, I had thought you might help with the casting—"

The younger Summers shook her head. "Nope. I'm going with Buffy." She handed a crossbow over to Xander. "And you're going to keep an eye on Faith."

* * *

"I'm starting to think we're never going to get away from this place."

Sunnydale High School, dilapidated and condemned as it was, loomed in front of them in the hazy dark. The smell of smoke filled the air. They'd already staked five vampires on the way over. Buffy and Faith making quick work of three, Dawn taking a fourth after some fight, and Xander and Willow managing the last. That group had been headed towards the school, like they were.

"Maybe if we'd left town, it might have helped." Buffy stared at the dark building.

"Nah."

Everyone had to admit Faith's answer was probably right. And, looking up, they found themselves at the entrance. Where Buffy and Willow and Dawn would leave the others to go in alone. Buffy could already feel other vampires nearing from behind them. She could feel the Hellmouth herself. Buzzing. Sickly. She focused instead on the vibrating strand that ran between her and Faith. She held on to Faith's hand, pulling her back against her for a moment.

"Don't make me have to rush in there to save your ass." The blonde tried on a grin, trailing a finger along the other girl's hip bone, trying not to look concerned.

"Don't be worrin' about me." The dark slayer grinned back, itching for the fight down there. "You just concentrate on poppin' out your little sun parasol when we get this shit locked up down there."

She hardly got it out before the world jerked under their feet and sent them all clasping for hands and shoulders around them as they rode it out. Everyone looked at Willow, who had both hands raised.

"It wasn't me, I swear."

Giles frowned. "Then we'd better get inside."

Willow watched Tara lean against Xander as she went through the door.

Buffy felt the cool air where Faith's body had been. "See you soon?"

"Yeah." Two fingers pressed against Buffy's lips, and then, with Faith's nod, the two groups parted ways.

It was only moments before the perimeter was under attack.

* * *

Inside, the rest of them raced ahead, dashing through familiar corridors made unfamiliar by neglect and dark and emptiness. Down into the bowels of the school, under the old library.

The demon was on them before their eyes could adjust to the dark down there. Shiny, white, a vampire gone wrong, face permanently twisted. It had on armor. It came at Faith with a sword.

"Okay, fucker, that's the way you wanna play it?" Faith danced back out of his reach and the sword sparked against the wall next to her. She kicked out underneath the blade and caught him in the chest, sending him back down a few steps. "You got toys…." She pulled the long knife out from inside her jacket. "…I got toys."

It bared its teeth at the blade in what might have been a smile, slashing in again. Faith leaned back and felt the blade whistle past where her stomach would have been. She nearly stumbled into the rest of them behind her, a few feet up the stairs.

A thwack, and a crossbow bolt sprouted from the center of his chest, quivering where it sunk in. Faith mouthed a thanks over her shoulder at Xander.

"Faith!"

She turned to Giles, then back in front of her just in time to see the decidedly un-dusted vampire swinging his sword down to slice her in half. She got the knife up and managed to deflect it somewhat as metal clanged against metal. She rolled away with just a gash down the length of her arm.

"Oh, now that's just fuckin' annoying."

* * *

Buffy dodged the punch aimed for her face from one vampire and got wrapped up from behind in a bear hug by another. She swore she felt a rib break as he squeezed.

"You know, I think you might have just punctured a lung." She slammed her head back in to the vampire's nose, sending blood flying everywhere. "Good thing I didn't really need it anyway." He dropped her to grab at his shattered face. She whirled and met him with a side kick to the gut. "Doesn't mean it didn't hurt, though."

He staggered back and then turned to dust as Dawn's stake pierced his back. The sisters shared a brief smile before it was cut off.

"Dawn, get down!"

* * *

Faith pressed forward, grabbing ahold of the demon's sword arm as cut through the air in front of her, twisting around to bring herself close and jam an elbow into its breast bone. Or rather, breast plate. The thing was hard as a rock, and she winced at the lack of give. It wrapped its other hand around her, taking the advantage of having her in close, and lashed out with a mouthful of sharp, thin teeth. Faith cried out as it caught her on top of that other bite, much rougher, the blood coming much faster.

She slammed the hand with the sword in it against the wall as she struggled against its grip. She felt it hiss "slayer" in her ear as it drank. She finally banged the sword free and it clattered to the ground, but she still couldn't get leverage herself, slipping on the edge of a stair.

* * *

The younger Summers obediently ducked and Buffy's stake flew over her shoulder and into the demon that had been coming up behind her. Before she had time to retrieve it, a kick to the side of her head sent her reeling.

"Buffy!" This time from Willow, who was rushing after the vampire that had slipped away from her to take on the slayer instead. Willow and Dawn both jumped on its back, sending it staggering a few steps forward. It whirled them from side to side, succeeding in flinging Willow off into some bushes near the steps.

"Buffy, I can't quite…." Dawn struggled to stay steady enough to plunge the stake in. Her sister was still shaking off the blow to her head, coming out of it only when she felt tension in the slayer connection. A flickering.

"Faith!" Looking to the door of the school, but then Dawn's cry bringing her back, as she saw her sister toppled head over heels, thrown over the vampire's shoulder. And he was following her, pinning her down easily in the grass.

* * *

Too much blood earlier. Too weak already. Faith struggled against the merciless fangs at her throat, but felt her peripheral vision narrowing. Some far away voices calling her name.

Another thwack and the crossbow bolt hit the demon in the eye. It roared, letting Faith go to grab at the stick protruding from its eye. Faith slumped to her knees, gasping, then wrapping her fingers around the fallen sword. She swung it up and around, taking its head clean off.

Finally, there was dust. She knelt in it, shaking her head to clear it. Giles ripped off part of Jonathan's shirt and tied it around her neck.

"Can you stand?"

She blinked, actually feeling the blood coagulate in the open wound. "Yeah."

And with that they were scrambling down the rest of the stairs.

* * *

"Dawn!"

Even as she cried it out, Willow was hurtling into him, knocking him off Dawn so that they rolled together in the grass, Willow bringing a cross up between them and pressing in hard into his face while her other hand pushed the wooden point between them. Buffy reached out to help her up as the dust fell, already saying her thank yous.

The ground shifted again beneath them, and they all looked to the building behind them.

"Oh, god…Faith." Buffy half-turned to go.

"You can't! The Hellmouth, Buffy!" Dawn pulling her back. "You could hurt her! You have to trust them!"

* * *

The dark swell of energy. The as-yet small opening straining wider. A pulsating vortex.

"C'mon, motherfucker. Just try it." Faith stared at it. The thing that drew demons and made her existence necessary, even if it did not seem particularly interested in prolonging that existence now.

Behind her, Tara's pale form leading the chant. Xander was standing next to her, holding her up as whatever unearthly tongue they spoke filled the room. Candles, symbols, other things she didn't understand. Not her thing. Her thing was watching that opening, slicing down with her newfound sword as a clawed hand poked through. She cut it off at the wrist and there was a shriek from the hell below. More were clamoring. She fought to ignore the dizziness, the pain in her arm. She could already feel her slayer starting to take care of those things, but if the opening got much wider….

The jolt sent her stumbling. The chanting stopped momentarily as everyone braced themselves. Anya eyed the ceiling.

"Keep going!" Giles' voice cut through the rumbling, pressing them on even as that opening started to stretch with the rolling earth. A torso this time, another of the old-school vampires. Faith cut it down like wheat and saw another coming up in its place until the chanting reached a crescendo and the aftershocks stilled and then there was a wail as the demon was caught in between earth and fire as the Hellmouth closed on him.

With one last swing of the sword, Faith sent him back to dust.

And they were done.

* * *

"Is that it?"

Dawn met them in the hallway, Buffy right behind her, sheltered from the sun that had reappeared outside.

"You were expecting more?" Giles rubbed at his eyes, wondering how it was that any of them were still functioning.

"Faith!" Buffy pulled the other girl to her, taking in the gash, the makeshift tourniquet around her neck. "I thought— Are you—?"

"Gotta say, B. You've ruined me for any other vamp's kisses. Not as gentle as yours." She was met by an insistent mouth covering hers, but managed a few words around the kiss. "You got better breath, too."

"I'm so glad you're—"

"Thank, Xan-man. Tara, Giles, all of 'em. They did their thing."

"And you did yours, Faith." Giles squeezed her uninjured arm.

"And I scored one demon eye." Xander held up his crossbow. Buffy reached over to hug him, mouthing her thanks in his ear. For everything.

"We got a few demons ourselves, before they could crash your party."

Dawn chimed in. "And Willow saved me there at the end."

The redhead blushed under the appreciative glances directed her way. Tara moved over, pale but smiling, to give her a hug. "Well, it would've been really lousy to get bitten right when they closed the Hellmouth."

"Will's right, bad timing is not allowed." Buffy had her arm around Dawn, but nodded over at Willow.

"So what now?"

Everyone looked at Anya for a moment.

"Donuts?"

"I'll second Xander's motion." Willow raised her hand in the air.

Giles shrugged. "Eh, why not? Buffy?"

"Think I'm gonna do a little quality bonding time with ye old alma mater." She swept a hand grandly around her. "Maybe check out the library. Pretty much avoid the sun until nightfall, by which point you will hopefully have thought of a better plan than me in your closet."

Giles smiled at that, then turned to the dark slayer next to her. "Faith?"

"Pretty sure she needs a chaperone. I hear these libraries are dangerous places."

"They're also secluded. There's one part of the stacks where Xander and I had sex fourteen times."

Faith's eyebrows shot up. "Duly noted, Anya." Buffy just put a hand over her face.

"And on that note…." Giles herded the rest of them towards the door. "Buffy, Faith, you know where to find us later."

"We do."

With a wave, they watched them go before turning to each other.

"Was it bad?" Buffy traced a finger down the rip in Faith's shirtsleeve.

"Day in the life."

"Our lives are not like other people's lives." She squeezed Faith's hands. "But I'm glad you're here with me, harrowing danger or not." A pause. "Oh, and Willow wanted me to give you this."

Faith's brow furrowed a little at that, turning the envelope over in her hands, unfolding it from where it had been in Buffy's back pocket. "Red?"

"Yeah, I think she thought it might be awkward…. Anyway, she wanted me to give it to you."

Faith opened it to find a folded birth certificate and social security card. "Faith…Giles?"

"She said she's set up the whole identity. A new one. So there won't be the problems with the police anymore. A fresh start. And Giles suggested that he would…you know, because he's practically…."

"Red, huh?" Faith grinned, turning the papers over in her hands. "Wait, so that means G-man's my dad now? Shit, I've got a lot of catchin' up to do. I mean, he didn't even have to deal with me when I was a teenager."

Buffy couldn't help but grin back. "I'm sure he'll be thrilled to relive those lost years with you. But just remember I'm stuck in his closet until we find something better."

"Or, more to the point, we're stuck here, alone, in this school until night. And did I hear there was some harrowing danger in those secluded stacks in the library?"

"Ooh…scary. But I think we can handle it."

"Pretty sure 'bout that."

Buffy's brow furrowing for a moment. "Are you sure…with…?" She pointed at the cloth around Faith's neck. What they both knew was underneath.

"So long as spinnin' 'round in circles doesn't sound like a hot time to you, I'm alright." One corner of her mouth tipped up. "And maybe I should just accept it as a challenge to keep you otherwise occupied."

"Consider the gauntlet thrown."

* * *

FINI

Thanks so much to all of you who have followed me through these sixty chapters! I really hope you've enjoyed it...I know I've certainly loved hearing what you have to say! I think I'm going to have to go back now and read it all at once. Especially given that I only had a vague sense of what might happen when I started this so many months ago. If anyone feels inclined to do the same, I'd love to know what you think along the way (so I can see what you see). I'm particularly curious about the places where the psychology of the relationship between Buffy and Faith was most interesting to you. I'm thinking of writing another story and, as I did in between my first story "Within" and this one, I decided to build on tensions that were interesting to readers, to flesh them out in a different situation. I'm even--gasp--contemplating a Buffy/Star Wars crossover, if that doesn't sound too far out there. Just imagine: Faith with a lightsaber. I'm thinking Buffy along the lines of Leia in Return of the Jedi (and I'm not sure if that involves a metal bikini). Could be good, could be horrendous, but I'd love to hear your thoughts on this story and, who knows, they might show up in the next! Thanks so much for reading!


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